Upgrade

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00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:03 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 406.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Fitbod,

00:00:15 ◼   ► Bombas, and Capital One.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snow.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Hi, Jason.

00:00:20 ◼   ► - Hi, Myke, how are you?

00:00:21 ◼   ► - I'm very well, my friend, very well indeed.

00:00:23 ◼   ► I have a #snowtalk question for you.

00:00:25 ◼   ► It comes from Nathan.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Nathan wants to know,

00:00:28 ◼   ► do you remember the first photo you took with an iPhone?

00:00:31 ◼   ► - I, well, I mean, the honest answer is no,

00:00:35 ◼   ► but I looked it up.

00:00:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I hoped you would do.

00:00:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so the answer is,

00:00:41 ◼   ► and I have told the version of this story before,

00:00:44 ◼   ► I wrote my review of the original iPhone

00:00:46 ◼   ► in a tent up in the mountains,

00:00:48 ◼   ► and I had to actually drive downhill

00:00:50 ◼   ► in order to get a cellular connection

00:00:52 ◼   ► so that I could send my review back,

00:00:53 ◼   ► because we had no cell connection at the place

00:00:58 ◼   ► where I was writing the review of the iPhone,

00:01:00 ◼   ► which was hilarious.

00:01:01 ◼   ► So to get there, you've got to drive from the Bay Area

00:01:05 ◼   ► up through the Central Valley

00:01:09 ◼   ► and then up through the foothills

00:01:10 ◼   ► and you get up into the mountains

00:01:12 ◼   ► and to the camp where we went.

00:01:13 ◼   ► So Lauren drove that whole way

00:01:17 ◼   ► and I sat in the passenger seat

00:01:19 ◼   ► and did as many things as I could do with the iPhone

00:01:21 ◼   ► that required the cellular network

00:01:23 ◼   ► as I possibly could before we got up to the high parts of the mountains where there was

00:01:28 ◼   ► no cellular connection. Along with that, I took a bunch of pictures. And in fact, I found

00:01:32 ◼   ► in my photo library a photo that is the earliest photo taken on an iPhone. It is marked as

00:01:38 ◼   ► image_0002. My guess is I took another image that was nothing or bad or didn't make any

00:01:46 ◼   ► sense. But all of the images starting there are of my family. It's my son strapped in

00:01:53 ◼   ► in a car seat and my wife driving

00:01:55 ◼   ► and then my daughter sitting in the back seat

00:01:58 ◼   ► as we take our trip, my son's got his sippy cup.

00:02:04 ◼   ► There's a picture of traffic out the front windshield.

00:02:08 ◼   ► - Perfect.

00:02:09 ◼   ► - So that's the first stuff I took,

00:02:12 ◼   ► first photos I took with the iPhone

00:02:13 ◼   ► are all of my family in the car driving to the place

00:02:16 ◼   ► where we were going to camp for a week.

00:02:19 ◼   ► And then I was using that as some of my data points

00:02:24 ◼   ► for my iPhone review.

00:02:25 ◼   ► - I have no idea what the answer is for me.

00:02:29 ◼   ► I have kind of pre-2000 and something.

00:02:34 ◼   ► There is, all of my photos are on a drive somewhere.

00:02:38 ◼   ► I don't know where this drive is.

00:02:39 ◼   ► I never have it at home somewhere.

00:02:40 ◼   ► I just gotta dig it out and do something with it.

00:02:43 ◼   ► It's like, I understand that it might make some people

00:02:45 ◼   ► recoil in horror, but it's just like photos

00:02:48 ◼   ► I don't care about.

00:02:48 ◼   ► Like I really don't care about them.

00:02:51 ◼   ► So there's just, there is a number of years

00:02:53 ◼   ► where I just don't have those pictures in anywhere reliable.

00:02:57 ◼   ► But you know, so I have no, I can't answer this question

00:03:00 ◼   ► 'cause all of my, the original,

00:03:04 ◼   ► like the earliest set of photos that I have

00:03:06 ◼   ► on my, in my photo library start in,

00:03:10 ◼   ► let me check when this is, 2013.

00:03:16 ◼   ► The rest are somewhere else one day.

00:03:21 ◼   ► I will do something with them.

00:03:22 ◼   ► - I have in my photo library, it's funny.

00:03:24 ◼   ► I have a scattering of photos before 2001,

00:03:29 ◼   ► but that was when we bought a digital camera.

00:03:31 ◼   ► It was in the fall of 2001.

00:03:34 ◼   ► And that's when the onslaught of photos begins.

00:03:38 ◼   ► Although it leads, it's funny,

00:03:40 ◼   ► it leads to this different era.

00:03:43 ◼   ► So the first author is the era before digital photography

00:03:46 ◼   ► where I've scanned some of those in

00:03:47 ◼   ► and I keep meaning to gather up basically

00:03:51 ◼   ► like all my old negatives and have somebody scan them all

00:03:54 ◼   ► just so that I can have those.

00:03:56 ◼   ► 'Cause there's this era of film cameras

00:03:58 ◼   ► where you didn't take a camera with you everywhere

00:04:01 ◼   ► and you didn't take very many shots

00:04:02 ◼   ► 'cause you had to get them delivered or developed

00:04:05 ◼   ► and then you had to go get them.

00:04:06 ◼   ► And then even if you got them,

00:04:08 ◼   ► they're not in your digital shoebox, right?

00:04:11 ◼   ► So that's an era.

00:04:12 ◼   ► What I didn't understand

00:04:13 ◼   ► when we bought our first digital cameras,

00:04:14 ◼   ► we were entering another era, which is the era

00:04:17 ◼   ► when you had to take pictures with your digital camera

00:04:20 ◼   ► and you didn't have a smartphone with you.

00:04:23 ◼   ► And so it's all of those pictures we took

00:04:27 ◼   ► are in my library, but they're not as consistent

00:04:32 ◼   ► because I didn't have a camera with me everywhere, right?

00:04:35 ◼   ► It was still sort of taking, I can take more pictures now

00:04:37 ◼   ► because the concept of the cost of taking a picture

00:04:42 ◼   ► is way less when you've got a digital camera.

00:04:45 ◼   ► And then there's this little tiny window

00:04:46 ◼   ► where it's smartphone pictures without geotagging.

00:04:49 ◼   ► And I find myself being like,

00:04:52 ◼   ► I know I took this picture here,

00:04:53 ◼   ► why does it say there are no pictures here?

00:04:55 ◼   ► And it turns out it's from before

00:04:56 ◼   ► they did geotagging in photos.

00:04:58 ◼   ► So I can't search based on its location.

00:05:01 ◼   ► And then there's the modern era,

00:05:02 ◼   ► which is everybody's got a smartphone,

00:05:04 ◼   ► all the pictures are geotagged,

00:05:06 ◼   ► and that's the modern era.

00:05:08 ◼   ► So, but my, yeah, my library starts in 2001,

00:05:11 ◼   ► where we bought a digital camera and then it just explodes.

00:05:14 ◼   ► That's, and then like the past before that is just

00:05:17 ◼   ► a mystery essentially.

00:05:20 ◼   ► Like I feel bad about it

00:05:22 ◼   ► 'cause I know that I've got some photos around,

00:05:24 ◼   ► but it's almost as if the photos before then,

00:05:26 ◼   ► other than the few that I scanned in just don't exist.

00:05:29 ◼   ► Our friend John Siracusa every now and then

00:05:31 ◼   ► in a Slack that we're in with him,

00:05:33 ◼   ► he'll post a picture from the past

00:05:35 ◼   ► and I can tell that John's still scanning in old film,

00:05:38 ◼   ► very slowly scanning in all of his old film

00:05:41 ◼   ► to be like, "Hey, here's a picture of my computer from the 90s." And I have some of those too.

00:05:45 ◼   ► - What else has he got to do these days, you know what I mean?

00:05:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, we also have some family like slides from Lauren's family and I want to just send

00:05:53 ◼   ► them out and have them scanned and then, you know, and then I'll throw them away. I just,

00:05:58 ◼   ► because I don't want them, but I also don't want to throw them away. I feel like we need

00:06:01 ◼   ► to actually have them scanned in. So I'll get to it at some point.

00:06:06 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a question to help us open an episode of Upgrade, just like Nathan did, just send out a tweet with the hashtag #snowtalk or use question mark snow talk in the Relay FM members discord.

00:06:17 ◼   ► Please send some in, help us start out an episode of Upgrade. It could be about whatever you want.

00:06:22 ◼   ► So as we are recording today, it is May 9th, 2022, we are exactly one month from WWDC.

00:06:31 ◼   ► - In 24 weeks. - Sure.

00:06:34 ◼   ► - I mean, WWDC will, on June 9th,

00:06:36 ◼   ► it'll be the Thursday of WWDC.

00:06:38 ◼   ► - Why do I keep doing this stuff?

00:06:40 ◼   ► I was convinced that it was the 9th of June,

00:06:44 ◼   ► is when WWDC was.

00:06:45 ◼   ► What is wrong with me?

00:06:46 ◼   ► I'm really struggling.

00:06:47 ◼   ► My conception of May and June over the last few weeks

00:06:50 ◼   ► has been horrific.

00:06:51 ◼   ► - It's, nine is just six upside down, it's fine.

00:06:53 ◼   ► - That's true, it must've been what it is.

00:06:55 ◼   ► - They're very similar numbers.

00:06:57 ◼   ► And it is 28 days, it is four weeks away.

00:07:01 ◼   ► away from today. So I think that by, yeah, sure, it's soon. It's what we're saying. It's soon.

00:07:07 ◼   ► - And today, May 9th, Apple has opened the registration ability for developers to sign up

00:07:15 ◼   ► to attend the day-long event happening at Apple Park. I actually saw on Twitter some Apple

00:07:25 ◼   ► employees referenced that as well as the keynote and State of the Union, the Apple Design Awards

00:07:32 ◼   ► will occur on this day. I haven't seen that reflected in any of Apple's official materials,

00:07:37 ◼   ► so you know, you can take that as hearsay from me at the moment. But yeah, so developers

00:07:44 ◼   ► can apply, they can submit their request to join between May 9th and May 11th, and then

00:07:48 ◼   ► everybody will be told by May 12th, so Thursday of this week if they're going to be visiting.

00:07:54 ◼   ► I'm still remaining intrigued about what on earth this event is actually going to look

00:07:59 ◼   ► like and how or if it's going to change the presentation of WWDC.

00:08:03 ◼   ► Yeah, it's still a mystery.

00:08:06 ◼   ► I guess we'll find out.

00:08:07 ◼   ► I mean, at some point we may find out beforehand or not.

00:08:12 ◼   ► It's something new.

00:08:14 ◼   ► Apple hasn't done it before.

00:08:15 ◼   ► It's harder to predict.

00:08:16 ◼   ► So we've been talking in the last couple of weeks about Jason and I were going to be ripping

00:08:21 ◼   ► apart a magic keyboard to extract the goodness of the Touch ID sensor inside. We did it on

00:08:28 ◼   ► Friday. There's a YouTube video, including the show notes, of the entire process if you

00:08:33 ◼   ► want to go and watch it. I think it was really fun. We had a good time hanging out. It was

00:08:38 ◼   ► full of trials and tribulations, I will say.

00:08:40 ◼   ► Could not have scripted it better, in fact, I would say. There were lots of twists and

00:08:44 ◼   ► turns to up the drama of, "Will they do it?" We've already spoiled that we did it.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Yeah, we did.

00:08:50 ◼   ► There was a lot of twists and turns and shocking moments

00:08:54 ◼   ► and popping sounds, but it all worked out.

00:08:59 ◼   ► - It all worked out.

00:09:00 ◼   ► We were very lucky actually during that stream

00:09:03 ◼   ► to be joined in the Twitch chat by Chaos Tian,

00:09:07 ◼   ► who is the person who inspired this entire thing,

00:09:10 ◼   ► the person who extracted the Touch ID sensor

00:09:13 ◼   ► and confirmed that it worked.

00:09:15 ◼   ► We were lucky because the iFixit guide

00:09:18 ◼   ► that we were trying to use wasn't great

00:09:22 ◼   ► for this particular keyboard.

00:09:24 ◼   ► I mean, and I wouldn't, some of the stuff I didn't like,

00:09:26 ◼   ► I didn't like the way iFixit wrote some of the guide,

00:09:28 ◼   ► but, and I had some issues with that,

00:09:31 ◼   ► but really the internals of the keyboards had changed

00:09:34 ◼   ► from the non-Touch ID version to the Touch ID version.

00:09:37 ◼   ► So after observing some of these struggles,

00:09:39 ◼   ► Chaos actually put together some instructions of their own,

00:09:44 ◼   ► which kind of, I think, add a little bit more

00:09:47 ◼   ► necessary context for some of the things that you would want to know if you're going to

00:09:53 ◼   ► attempt this yourself.

00:09:54 ◼   ► I would say that this is not a complicated thing, it just requires an equal measure of

00:10:02 ◼   ► brute force and very careful extraction, which is an intriguing thing, but those are the

00:10:09 ◼   ► two things that you need.

00:10:11 ◼   ► One of the things we were talking about a lot afterwards, and I still haven't worked

00:10:14 ◼   ► out what I'm going to do personally is where this is going to go. Like right now I just

00:10:18 ◼   ► have a logic board and some very thin ribbon cables and a button and I need to do something

00:10:27 ◼   ► with it. Like ultimately I want to put it inside of a keyboard case but the issue is

00:10:32 ◼   ► I need to be able to run two cables or need to be able to run the lightning cable inside

00:10:38 ◼   ► because I don't want to get a Bluetooth radio and attach it to a battery because that just

00:10:41 ◼   ► seems like a nightmare. But Chaos made their own 3D printed case, which I'll put a link

00:10:45 ◼   ► in the show notes too, and they also included some instructions on how they did that, like

00:10:51 ◼   ► 3D printed and stuff. So I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to do something

00:10:55 ◼   ► with it. For me, this was more a "can I do this?" This has been a big thing of my last

00:11:01 ◼   ► couple of years with these types of electronics projects, is like, do I have the ability to

00:11:06 ◼   ► do this? And thankfully, the answer was yes, I did have the ability to do it, and I think

00:11:10 ◼   ► we had a great time making it work together.

00:11:13 ◼   ► So go check it out.

00:11:14 ◼   ► It was really fun, I think.

00:11:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it inspired me.

00:11:17 ◼   ► I definitely want to do this too,

00:11:19 ◼   ► but I need to, you know,

00:11:21 ◼   ► I want to have it end up being usable,

00:11:25 ◼   ► which means that I am going to need to figure out

00:11:28 ◼   ► what that case situation is.

00:11:30 ◼   ► So we'll have to monitor that.

00:11:32 ◼   ► If we find out that there's a, there's good,

00:11:34 ◼   ► like, like Chaos has a, has a simple 3D case,

00:11:38 ◼   ► printed case, maybe other people are working on something.

00:11:41 ◼   ► That's, I want that to be part of the process

00:11:44 ◼   ► because I don't want to have just a certain board.

00:11:47 ◼   ► - I wouldn't recommend doing it just to do what I've done

00:11:51 ◼   ► as such, like I think the next part is important.

00:11:55 ◼   ► - I showed this project to Lauren

00:11:57 ◼   ► and her immediate response was,

00:11:59 ◼   ► oh, they should just make that.

00:12:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, they should make it.

00:12:02 ◼   ► - Like, I mean, it was just immediate

00:12:04 ◼   ► and she's got a laptop that she uses

00:12:07 ◼   ► when she's at home at a lot of the time at a desk

00:12:09 ◼   ► with an external keyboard

00:12:11 ◼   ► and then has to reach up to do the touch ID.

00:12:12 ◼   ► And she was like, "Oh yeah, that makes so much sense."

00:12:15 ◼   ► And I admit maybe Apple will never make this

00:12:18 ◼   ► because it is such a weird thing

00:12:20 ◼   ► to just have a standalone touch ID thing.

00:12:21 ◼   ► And they're admitting

00:12:22 ◼   ► that people aren't using their keyboards and all that.

00:12:24 ◼   ► But something we said on the stream

00:12:25 ◼   ► that I think really needs to be restated is it would be,

00:12:28 ◼   ► I think the perfect place for this is in the Magic Trackpad.

00:12:35 ◼   ► that doing a version of the Magic Trackpad that just has a little tiny corner with the

00:12:38 ◼   ► Touch ID button, Touch ID sensor on it is all, you know, all you really need and then

00:12:45 ◼   ► you've made it not a requirement to use Apple's keyboard because I know not everybody uses

00:12:49 ◼   ► Apple's keyboard.

00:12:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I would expect more people use Magic Trackpad than use Apple's keyboards.

00:12:56 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:12:57 ◼   ► Probably.

00:12:58 ◼   ► Because you always need some kind of input device and I think the Trackpad does really

00:13:04 ◼   ► well so I would love to see that too you just put it on the little top corner

00:13:06 ◼   ► there oh man be off to the races be fantastic right studio display I don't

00:13:14 ◼   ► think we're touching this too much but there's been another beta which is

00:13:17 ◼   ► included yet more tweaks to the camera processing so they're clearly continuing

00:13:24 ◼   ► to tinker with this right yeah I I haven't noticed much of a difference it

00:13:28 ◼   ► It is a little bit different, but one of the things I did not do last week was go through

00:13:35 ◼   ► the whole process of putting the two displays front and back.

00:13:40 ◼   ► And also what I'm doing is I'm leaving the other display that I've got on the original

00:13:43 ◼   ► firmware, not playing a game of like one upmanship along the way.

00:13:50 ◼   ► I'm trying to keep the original firmware there so I can compare all these betas to the original

00:13:54 ◼   ► firmware.

00:13:55 ◼   ► But it seems like they're tinkering.

00:13:57 ◼   ► there's definitely more that they can do. And, you know, settings is ultimately what

00:14:02 ◼   ► they really should do is let us set the settings for the camera, please.

00:14:09 ◼   ► - According to Zoe Schiffer from The Verge, Apple's director of machine learning has resigned

00:14:15 ◼   ► over Apple's requirements for in-office working. Ian Goodfellow has been at Apple for just

00:14:20 ◼   ► over four years in an email to team members. He said, "I believe strongly that more flexibility

00:14:25 ◼   ► would have been the best policy for my team.

00:14:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

00:14:30 ◼   ► What's unclear here is was he leaving,

00:14:35 ◼   ► 'cause what we know is he left

00:14:39 ◼   ► and he said that this was bad.

00:14:42 ◼   ► Doesn't necessarily mean that this is why he left,

00:14:44 ◼   ► but he took a shot out the door

00:14:47 ◼   ► and it might have been a motivator for him to leave.

00:14:50 ◼   ► So it's a data point.

00:14:51 ◼   ► It's a data point.

00:14:52 ◼   ► I like to see--

00:14:52 ◼   ► - Well, Schiffer says in her tweet,

00:14:55 ◼   ► is leaving the company due to its return to work policy.

00:14:59 ◼   ► Okay. I mean that's all we have is that tweet.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know if based on what was quoted

00:15:07 ◼   ► it's clear to me that that's accurate, but maybe it is. She's seen the

00:15:13 ◼   ► the email apparently. I will say that I like to see a manager standing up for

00:15:19 ◼   ► their team, right? Because so much of this seems to

00:15:22 ◼   ► have been individual motivated by individual workers saying, "We don't want to do this,"

00:15:27 ◼   ► and having a manager say, "This is bad for my team, and they are making us do this without

00:15:33 ◼   ► flexibility and it is bad for my team."

00:15:38 ◼   ► And that's good to hear, but obviously, if that was the case, it didn't stop.

00:15:47 ◼   ► It didn't prevent Ian Goodfellow from leaving.

00:15:50 ◼   ► he left, so that's not great. Yeah, maybe, and we don't know how many people there

00:15:56 ◼   ► are that have done this, right? Like, I expect it's more than just this one

00:15:59 ◼   ► person, but they're high up enough that they would send an email out, for example,

00:16:04 ◼   ► to a team that could be linked, leaked, which is what's happened. But you've got

00:16:08 ◼   ► to assume that he's not the only one, but then there's also the

00:16:12 ◼   ► argument from Apple's perspective of, like, this is what they want, and probably

00:16:17 ◼   ► when they were thinking about this plan that they have, assumed that they would lose people

00:16:22 ◼   ► and that they, I guess, weighed it up and felt that it was something that they were

00:16:27 ◼   ► willing to do. But, well, I think time's going to tell as to if this becomes more and more

00:16:33 ◼   ► of an issue going forward. You know, we don't know what's going to happen. But obviously

00:16:38 ◼   ► some people are pretty unhappy about it. And it is that idea which we spoke about before,

00:16:43 ◼   ► They made it work, right?

00:16:44 ◼   ► Apple has made it work.

00:16:46 ◼   ► The company is not ground to a halt.

00:16:48 ◼   ► There is clearly the ability for there to be

00:16:50 ◼   ► more distributed working.

00:16:52 ◼   ► They obviously believe it to a point

00:16:54 ◼   ► because they're allowing for it

00:16:56 ◼   ► at least a couple of days a week, right?

00:16:58 ◼   ► It's not like Apple's moved to a three-day work week.

00:17:01 ◼   ► I don't think they're expecting no work is done

00:17:04 ◼   ► on the two days a week on people who are at home.

00:17:06 ◼   ► So, but the wide brawling is weird to me.

00:17:12 ◼   ► I think that it should be given as a more,

00:17:15 ◼   ► as Goodfellow says, like more flexibility for their team.

00:17:20 ◼   ► I think that answers the question that we had of like,

00:17:25 ◼   ► will Apple be giving a lot more control

00:17:28 ◼   ► over individual managers to make their own decisions?

00:17:31 ◼   ► Well, it seemed like in this situation,

00:17:33 ◼   ► the answer was no for the machine learning team, right?

00:17:36 ◼   ► Because that's clearly what Goodfellow was asking for,

00:17:39 ◼   ► more flexibility for his team.

00:17:42 ◼   ► And he didn't get that.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Jason, let's travel back to the Netherlands.

00:17:47 ◼   ► We're back. - Oh boy.

00:17:48 ◼   ► - We're back. - Oh boy,

00:17:49 ◼   ► is it time for some Dutch dating?

00:17:51 ◼   ► - Duleps everywhere, it's time to date in the Netherlands.

00:17:53 ◼   ► It's Dutch date and time.

00:17:54 ◼   ► So I would assume everybody remembers a number of weeks ago,

00:17:59 ◼   ► Apple revised and altered its plan

00:18:01 ◼   ► for dealing with external linking

00:18:03 ◼   ► and alternative payment models.

00:18:06 ◼   ► So like the ability for somebody to pay

00:18:08 ◼   ► with a third party payment company.

00:18:10 ◼   ► This is in the hopes of appeasing Dutch regulators, right?

00:18:12 ◼   ► So remember there was this ruling,

00:18:15 ◼   ► Apple tried to ignore it for a while,

00:18:17 ◼   ► then they created a set of rules and guidelines

00:18:22 ◼   ► on how they were gonna do it.

00:18:23 ◼   ► They then revised them, they changed the language

00:18:25 ◼   ► of the interstitial screens, et cetera, et cetera.

00:18:28 ◼   ► They were then giving this, like here it is,

00:18:31 ◼   ► this is what we're gonna do.

00:18:32 ◼   ► And it went off to the Dutch regulators

00:18:34 ◼   ► and they are still not happy.

00:18:35 ◼   ► They have said that this new approach is an improvement

00:18:38 ◼   ► over what Apple provided before,

00:18:40 ◼   ► but still not sufficient enough

00:18:42 ◼   ► to comply with their rulings.

00:18:43 ◼   ► Apple has now hit the maximum fines of 50 million Euro

00:18:50 ◼   ► because they were doing 5 million a week,

00:18:52 ◼   ► and they've now hit that,

00:18:53 ◼   ► but now the regulators are considering alternative penalties

00:18:57 ◼   ► because Apple has still not provided them

00:19:01 ◼   ► with what they were looking for in the first place.

00:19:05 ◼   ► I don't know where this is gonna go, right?

00:19:07 ◼   ► It seems like a very weird game of like 20 questions

00:19:11 ◼   ► happening behind the scenes.

00:19:12 ◼   ► It's like, is this enough?

00:19:14 ◼   ► No, try again.

00:19:15 ◼   ► How about this?

00:19:16 ◼   ► Closer, warmer.

00:19:18 ◼   ► - Because my assumption is that

00:19:22 ◼   ► from the regulator's perspective,

00:19:24 ◼   ► they've been pretty clear because Google got it right.

00:19:27 ◼   ► Right?

00:19:29 ◼   ► Google made their proposal and it's been accepted.

00:19:32 ◼   ► - Right, but Apple's like,

00:19:33 ◼   ► we want to do the least possible.

00:19:37 ◼   ► - 'Cause it's clearly not the fees thing either, right?

00:19:43 ◼   ► 'Cause you know, we were talking about that,

00:19:44 ◼   ► like about what the fees are

00:19:45 ◼   ► because Google is still taking a pretty hefty fee,

00:19:47 ◼   ► not as hefty as Apple's, but pretty hefty.

00:19:50 ◼   ► It's clearly just the way that it's being shown

00:19:52 ◼   ► and they're just not, for whatever reason,

00:19:54 ◼   ► meeting the rules.

00:19:56 ◼   ► And I just wonder how much time, effort, and attention

00:20:00 ◼   ► is this really taking from Apple

00:20:02 ◼   ► if they should. How many more times are we gonna have to go through this? This is just

00:20:06 ◼   ► one of many, right? Like... Anyway. But that's an update. I'm sure we'll come back to this

00:20:12 ◼   ► again at some point in the future.

00:20:13 ◼   ► Apparently we will because they haven't resolved anything.

00:20:16 ◼   ► Nope. Nothing is resolved.

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00:21:54 ◼   ► as

00:22:10 ◼   ► this week Jason.

00:22:12 ◼   ► Mark Gurman is reporting that Apple is working on new features for Fitness Plus hoping to

00:22:16 ◼   ► be introduced this year.

00:22:18 ◼   ► This would include new workout types which seems like an obvious addition.

00:22:22 ◼   ► You just keep kind of increasing that over time.

00:22:24 ◼   ► Different instructors, different types of workouts, it seems like the obvious.

00:22:28 ◼   ► Upgrades to the Apple TV experience.

00:22:31 ◼   ► We don't know what they are but I know people have had frustrations with that especially

00:22:35 ◼   ► like if multiple people wanted to do a workout.

00:22:39 ◼   ► I hope that Apple try and find some way to do that,

00:22:41 ◼   ► which would be pretty cool.

00:22:42 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, that'd be good.

00:22:44 ◼   ► - Also, this one's weird to me, I don't get this.

00:22:46 ◼   ► Also, apparently Apple are exploring quote,

00:22:49 ◼   ► "An Instacart-like service that integrates

00:22:52 ◼   ► with nutrition data in the Health app."

00:22:55 ◼   ► Now, if I'm following right,

00:22:57 ◼   ► that means Apple wants to deliver your groceries?

00:23:00 ◼   ► Like I don't, am I following that correctly?

00:23:02 ◼   ► - And wants to log your meals?

00:23:06 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:23:08 ◼   ► - Right, I don't get this. - Very weird, right?

00:23:09 ◼   ► - I don't understand this at all.

00:23:11 ◼   ► - Or is it a service that they're partnering with

00:23:13 ◼   ► that will bring little boxes of food to your house

00:23:16 ◼   ► and labeled for you and then you eat them and it knows?

00:23:19 ◼   ► - I don't need my computer company

00:23:22 ◼   ► to be handling my groceries for me.

00:23:24 ◼   ► - No, this seems like too far.

00:23:27 ◼   ► Also, any experience that I've had with even apps

00:23:29 ◼   ► that are like, "Oh, we'll build your shopping list,"

00:23:31 ◼   ► and all that, it's like, it doesn't work for me.

00:23:33 ◼   ► It has never worked because the level of specificity

00:23:37 ◼   ► that I have about what I want to buy is way more than they're capable of doing.

00:23:41 ◼   ► I don't understand this. It seems like an unnecessarily complicated thing.

00:23:47 ◼   ► If they want to get more into like nutrition tracking,

00:23:51 ◼   ► calorie tracking, like as a thing for the health and fitness teams, fine.

00:23:56 ◼   ► But the idea of integrating it with real world grocery delivery services,

00:24:01 ◼   ► unless it's an API, I don't understand it, right?

00:24:05 ◼   ► Like, if they're developing tools for companies that do this to integrate into the health

00:24:10 ◼   ► app, that's one thing.

00:24:12 ◼   ► But them trying to develop some kind of system, I don't know, this seems like someone heard

00:24:16 ◼   ► something and it got spit through somebody else, it didn't make any sense.

00:24:19 ◼   ► I just can't think of the logic in this at all.

00:24:22 ◼   ► No.

00:24:23 ◼   ► Mark Gurman also gave a little bit more detail, this is all coming from his Poweron newsletter

00:24:27 ◼   ► of course, on the hardware subscription plans that Apple's looking to do.

00:24:33 ◼   ► So this is the idea of you paying monthly and getting your iPhone, your iPad or your

00:24:38 ◼   ► Mac and getting them refreshed and stuff like that.

00:24:40 ◼   ► So you know doing more than the upgrade program to actual subscriptions for hardware devices.

00:24:47 ◼   ► Apple wants to make this experience on par with the other services that you already have.

00:24:53 ◼   ► So you would use your iCloud or App Store account to subscribe and it would all just

00:24:57 ◼   ► be managed like any service.

00:25:00 ◼   ► it seems like they don't want to make it this whole big thing like the you know

00:25:03 ◼   ► the iPhone upgrade program right now is like a huge big thing right you are

00:25:07 ◼   ► going through credit checks and doing all that stuff I don't know how Apple

00:25:13 ◼   ► could make this work like if they want to make it as simple as signing up for

00:25:19 ◼   ► Apple TV+ like how do you manage that like that the person is not just gonna

00:25:26 ◼   ► to pay once and then cancel their account and they've got your device, right?

00:25:29 ◼   ► Like, I'm intrigued to see what that ends up looking like.

00:25:32 ◼   ► If they want to make it simple, you potentially run into some problems there.

00:25:38 ◼   ► The current expectation for this is late 2022 as a launch date at the earliest.

00:25:45 ◼   ► Apple are prioritizing their buy now, pay later instalment plan option first.

00:25:50 ◼   ► And this is like the idea of like, you could go to the Apple store and you'd be able to

00:25:54 ◼   ► split your new iPad purchase over four payments, which is, I think as you've mentioned, what

00:26:00 ◼   ► all the kids are doing these days.

00:26:01 ◼   ► It's a hot thing with the kids, right?

00:26:04 ◼   ► When I walk to my Apple store, there are signs throughout the outdoor shopping center, basically,

00:26:11 ◼   ► about for various services that are, you know, pay in three, pay in four.

00:26:16 ◼   ► the idea that it doesn't cost $800 if you pay in four,

00:26:21 ◼   ► it costs $200 for four months.

00:26:26 ◼   ► - There's some logic to it, right?

00:26:27 ◼   ► - No, the logic is that people have that,

00:26:30 ◼   ► will be able to pay the payment stretched out over four,

00:26:33 ◼   ► but they don't have enough money in the bank

00:26:34 ◼   ► to buy it right now.

00:26:35 ◼   ► And rather than doing it like on layaway

00:26:37 ◼   ► or something like that,

00:26:38 ◼   ► they just get it and then know they're committed,

00:26:42 ◼   ► you know, and then we can have a discussion of,

00:26:44 ◼   ► I saw an article today about like how many of those things do the people fail to make

00:26:48 ◼   ► the payments and what is that what are the penalties and all of that is it's still paying

00:26:53 ◼   ► on credit essentially so you can get yourself in trouble but it has also proven to be a

00:26:57 ◼   ► pretty popular way for people who don't have a lot of money sort of in the bank but are

00:27:02 ◼   ► are willing to make the payments and stretch it out to get the thing that they want so

00:27:06 ◼   ► and if I'm remembering rightly like a lot of these if like a lot of these things they're

00:27:11 ◼   ► not actually charging you interest either. It's just... Right, oh, no, that's generally

00:27:15 ◼   ► they are if you pick if you make the payments in four or whatever then it's

00:27:20 ◼   ► just it's literally one quarter of the price every month for four months.

00:27:23 ◼   ► It's just interest free credit and like you know at that point I think there's

00:27:27 ◼   ► some logic to doing it like even if you have the money just split it out make it

00:27:30 ◼   ► less of a hit on yourself you know what I mean why not? Well especially if it's

00:27:34 ◼   ► Apple doing it and so it's just sort of like coming out of your same credit card

00:27:38 ◼   ► is all your other Apple stuff and all of that. And then you're like, put it on my account,

00:27:41 ◼   ► basically. I don't know. It's very much Apple trying to take control. I mean, this is obviously

00:27:49 ◼   ► part of being a person at Apple is to always survey your partnerships and the places where

00:27:53 ◼   ► you're outsourcing to other companies and say, should we be doing that ourselves? And a lot of

00:27:59 ◼   ► times the answer is probably no, but occasionally I do think that they see something and they say,

00:28:04 ◼   ► "Yeah, maybe we should do this."

00:28:06 ◼   ► And the financial stuff clearly is an area

00:28:07 ◼   ► where they would like to eliminate those partners

00:28:12 ◼   ► and just do it themselves.

00:28:13 ◼   ► - And then a couple little bits on AirPods.

00:28:16 ◼   ► Apple's still planning to release new AirPods Pro

00:28:18 ◼   ► later this year.

00:28:20 ◼   ► Mark mentions this would be prudent

00:28:21 ◼   ► because the batteries are probably starting to fall off

00:28:23 ◼   ► for early AirPods Pro customers.

00:28:26 ◼   ► Like me, my AirPods Pro batteries are real struggling now.

00:28:31 ◼   ► This is what happened with the original AirPods for me too.

00:28:34 ◼   ► when I replaced my original AirPods of AirPods Pro,

00:28:37 ◼   ► you know, been out for a couple of years

00:28:38 ◼   ► and brought a new one.

00:28:40 ◼   ► I'm having to charge my AirPods much more frequently,

00:28:43 ◼   ► like the case and the AirPods themselves.

00:28:46 ◼   ► - I'm not having this issue mostly

00:28:48 ◼   ► because I had my AirPods Pro replaced

00:28:51 ◼   ► due to the rattling issue.

00:28:53 ◼   ► So they seem to be, they seem to have a little more life,

00:28:57 ◼   ► but I love them.

00:28:59 ◼   ► And so I would be happy to see what a new set looked like

00:29:03 ◼   ► and how they're improved because I love the current ones.

00:29:07 ◼   ► So hopefully they'll just get better

00:29:09 ◼   ► and it'll give me a reason to get a new set

00:29:11 ◼   ► 'cause they're my favorite. - And I do love

00:29:13 ◼   ► that this is an Apple product

00:29:14 ◼   ► that they do not feel the need to update every year.

00:29:17 ◼   ► They just wait. - Yeah.

00:29:20 ◼   ► - A couple of years, I think it's fantastic.

00:29:22 ◼   ► It works for me.

00:29:24 ◼   ► Mark also mentions a refresh of the AirPods Max

00:29:27 ◼   ► with new color options, but probably no other changes.

00:29:30 ◼   ► Hopefully a price drop, it says Mark,

00:29:33 ◼   ► which I would agree I think they should probably reduce the price. I love my AirPods Max but

00:29:36 ◼   ► they are not worth the price I paid for them I would say. I still want to see an AirPods Max 2

00:29:44 ◼   ► with lighter materials because that would be better for a lot more people and would help make them

00:29:49 ◼   ► cheaper and folding. Folding is the biggest thing that I want to see from from that product.

00:29:54 ◼   ► Otherwise it's a fantastic product but for me but I don't think that it is great for everybody.

00:30:01 ◼   ► So I would love to see it more.

00:30:03 ◼   ► - AirPods Max, maybe AirPods Studio.

00:30:06 ◼   ► AirPods Studio.

00:30:07 ◼   ► - That was the rumoured the name, right?

00:30:08 ◼   ► Back in the day.

00:30:09 ◼   ► - Right, and now they've got studio products.

00:30:11 ◼   ► So it's a better name.

00:30:12 ◼   ► It's a better name.

00:30:13 ◼   ► - It's a way better name.

00:30:14 ◼   ► It's a way better name.

00:30:15 ◼   ► Studio is the best.

00:30:16 ◼   ► Max sucks.

00:30:17 ◼   ► Sorry if your name's Max.

00:30:18 ◼   ► - Studio has a music connotation.

00:30:23 ◼   ► - Yes, it's a perfect name. - Max.

00:30:24 ◼   ► Max does not.

00:30:26 ◼   ► - It may have, it may purely have been like

00:30:28 ◼   ► they were gonna call them AirPods Studio

00:30:29 ◼   ► marketing was like nope we have got that name for something else come up with something

00:30:34 ◼   ► come back to the drawing board.

00:30:35 ◼   ► Hands off. Yeah or they're like well we don't want confusion with Beats which has some studio

00:30:40 ◼   ► but it's like too bad. AirPods studio it's fine.

00:30:44 ◼   ► We're gonna go back to a not off news segment here, Jason Snow. Time for upshift here because

00:30:50 ◼   ► we have some Apple Car news. Apple has hired a Ford veteran, Mark Gurman and Keith Naughton

00:30:59 ◼   ► reporting at Bloomberg that Apple has hired Desi Ujegovicek from Ford. Her previous roles

00:31:06 ◼   ► at Ford are in vehicle safety and engineering. She's been at Ford for over 30 years, most recently

00:31:12 ◼   ► as the global director of automotive safety engineering, as well as assisting on engineering

00:31:19 ◼   ► of various car components. Ujegovicek has history with working on regulatory issues as well.

00:31:26 ◼   ► So an interesting person to bring over, as a reminder, just to get everybody up to date,

00:31:33 ◼   ► Apple has had a ton of issues retaining key talent in the car project.

00:31:37 ◼   ► It had previously been run by another Ford veteran, Doug Field, who left.

00:31:41 ◼   ► It's currently being overseen by Kevin Lynch. Yes, the guy from Adobe who did the Apple Watch

00:31:45 ◼   ► is running the car project. This report doesn't give any indication as to where

00:31:52 ◼   ► where Uce Kvisek will sit from a leadership perspective at this stage. It doesn't seem

00:31:58 ◼   ► like from the way it's written that she'll be heading the project, but would be high

00:32:02 ◼   ► up.

00:32:03 ◼   ► But it is a, you know, a serious, well thought of person who's been a Ford executive for

00:32:10 ◼   ► a long time. I think that's interesting in terms of how seriously they're taking it.

00:32:14 ◼   ► It does also possibly say something about her wanting a new challenge, about what Ford's

00:32:20 ◼   ► reorg around EVs look like and maybe she wasn't happy with where she ended up in that. I mean,

00:32:25 ◼   ► there's a lot of reasons that this could have happened, but it is somebody who's

00:32:29 ◼   ► a serious auto industry executive who's coming to work on this project, which I think is,

00:32:32 ◼   ► if nothing else, it's a data point of like, oh, I guess this is still happening and they're still

00:32:38 ◼   ► taking it seriously because otherwise somebody this seriously entrenched in the auto industry

00:32:44 ◼   ► would not, and in fact, if you look at safety and regulatory,

00:32:49 ◼   ► you could even say this suggests more than intent

00:32:55 ◼   ► to ship something, right?

00:32:59 ◼   ► That at some point you need to start getting your ducks

00:33:02 ◼   ► in a row in order to have your vehicle be approved

00:33:06 ◼   ► and street legal, right?

00:33:08 ◼   ► You need somebody who actually has experienced

00:33:11 ◼   ► what it's like to work with regulators to build cars that are acceptable and safe and

00:33:17 ◼   ► legal and that this is what she's been doing. So they may be like, "Oh, we need somebody

00:33:23 ◼   ► who actually can make sure that this is not just a theory, but it's a product that we

00:33:27 ◼   ► can actually sell."

00:33:28 ◼   ► - I mean, especially considering all of the report and continues to indicate that Apple's

00:33:33 ◼   ► current plan is to aim towards a fully self-driving car with no steering wheel pedals. They're

00:33:40 ◼   ► going to need this kind of assistance to try and get people to let them do that.

00:33:46 ◼   ► Or I hope that she comes in and says, "Excuse me, what now?"

00:33:50 ◼   ► Well, but here's the thing. You put something in my mind a minute ago about the seriousness.

00:33:56 ◼   ► Now I'm assuming that someone like this is not answering a job posting. They're being

00:34:04 ◼   ► headhunted, right?

00:34:05 ◼   ► Probably yes.

00:34:06 ◼   ► Right? It would be my assumption.

00:34:08 ◼   ► You know, my father-in-law was a high-level executive headhunter, so absolutely. I can

00:34:15 ◼   ► picture it. It's like they come and say, "We need a vice president or president-level person

00:34:20 ◼   ► to come and do this thing," and then they go and they find the four people who could

00:34:24 ◼   ► do that and they approach them.

00:34:25 ◼   ► And especially, you know, it's possible that UJ Kvisek was on the list because that

00:34:31 ◼   ► Doug – a list that Doug Field made.

00:34:34 ◼   ► It could entirely be, right?

00:34:36 ◼   ► of like, here's a bunch of people that would be really good,

00:34:38 ◼   ► either they already, like Field had already made it,

00:34:42 ◼   ► or left it, or whatever, you know what I mean?

00:34:44 ◼   ► - Exactly, yeah, on his desk he was like,

00:34:46 ◼   ► people who could replace me. - People to hire.

00:34:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, yes, and so you would think also

00:34:51 ◼   ► that Desi Użyjekowiśczyk would not have,

00:34:54 ◼   ► would not have taken this job without very clearly knowing

00:34:56 ◼   ► what Apple's aims are, and what Apple's--

00:34:58 ◼   ► - Right, exactly. - Purposes are.

00:34:59 ◼   ► - They're sitting down, and she's gonna say,

00:35:01 ◼   ► all right, so what's the plan here, what you looking for?

00:35:04 ◼   ► - Exactly, so while it's funny to imagine her getting there

00:35:06 ◼   ► and then on day one they're like,

00:35:07 ◼   ► okay, what we're gonna do is there's gonna be

00:35:09 ◼   ► no steering wheel and--

00:35:10 ◼   ► - Where's the wheel?

00:35:11 ◼   ► - Excuse me.

00:35:12 ◼   ► In reality, I do wonder though, again,

00:35:17 ◼   ► this is, look, this is us expressing the same skepticism

00:35:20 ◼   ► we've expressed in the past, which is,

00:35:22 ◼   ► I think that there is literally zero chance

00:35:24 ◼   ► of Apple releasing a car that only self-drives

00:35:27 ◼   ► and doesn't have controls for people to drive normally.

00:35:31 ◼   ► I think, I'll say it again.

00:35:33 ◼   ► zero chance because it's just not like,

00:35:37 ◼   ► and certainly not in the next decade, right?

00:35:40 ◼   ► Like this self-driving tech is not good anywhere.

00:35:45 ◼   ► The companies that have been working on it for ages,

00:35:47 ◼   ► it's still not good enough.

00:35:48 ◼   ► And it's certainly not good enough

00:35:50 ◼   ► for you to not have the ability to take control

00:35:53 ◼   ► or to drive it in certain circumstances

00:35:55 ◼   ► where it can't be run.

00:35:56 ◼   ► I'm willing to go,

00:35:58 ◼   ► and this is just summarizing a past episode,

00:36:00 ◼   ► but like I'm willing to go down the path

00:36:02 ◼   ► of like on highways, it'll be self fully self-driving

00:36:06 ◼   ► all that, it's like, okay, I'm willing to at least accept

00:36:10 ◼   ► that it's possible that like Tesla software

00:36:13 ◼   ► will be good enough that in certain places

00:36:16 ◼   ► you can set it and forget it, even though right now

00:36:19 ◼   ► the full self-driving beta stuff is, you know, again,

00:36:21 ◼   ► on highways, it's pretty good except when it's terrible,

00:36:24 ◼   ► on streets, it's much more difficult

00:36:27 ◼   ► and problematic than that.

00:36:29 ◼   ► But to make it so perfect that you don't need controls

00:36:34 ◼   ► is never, I mean, never with an asterisk saying,

00:36:37 ◼   ► let's say in the next decade,

00:36:39 ◼   ► as a part of this Apple project,

00:36:41 ◼   ► never gonna be the case.

00:36:42 ◼   ► It's ridiculous.

00:36:44 ◼   ► - A project like this as well,

00:36:46 ◼   ► you've got to be able to build something

00:36:48 ◼   ► that consumers are going to feel comfortable owning

00:36:51 ◼   ► and getting behind the wheel of.

00:36:53 ◼   ► I mean, I am such a fan of Apple, obviously, right?

00:36:57 ◼   ► And love everything that they make.

00:36:59 ◼   ► I wouldn't want to get Apple's first generation car,

00:37:02 ◼   ► even if it was a normal car, right?

00:37:04 ◼   ► Because they are not a car company.

00:37:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think, yeah, you'd be in for a ride,

00:37:09 ◼   ► but I will say if Apple, like I can imagine an Apple car.

00:37:14 ◼   ► I can, it's been long enough that we've been talking

00:37:17 ◼   ► about this, that I can imagine an Apple car.

00:37:19 ◼   ► I can imagine Apple sort of, you know,

00:37:24 ◼   ► they miss their shot in the sense that they should have been

00:37:27 ◼   ► out there competing with Tesla and Rivian,

00:37:29 ◼   ► and now all the big automakers are coming in.

00:37:31 ◼   ► But I can still imagine an Apple car that's luxurious,

00:37:35 ◼   ► it's more expensive,

00:37:36 ◼   ► it's got really nice tech on the inside,

00:37:39 ◼   ► it's got integration with cellular networks in your phone

00:37:42 ◼   ► and all of that kind of stuff,

00:37:43 ◼   ► that the software on board is really, really good.

00:37:46 ◼   ► Like, I can imagine all of that

00:37:48 ◼   ► and that it has great safety features

00:37:50 ◼   ► and that it has great smart driving features and all that.

00:37:53 ◼   ► Like, I can picture all of that.

00:37:56 ◼   ► The question has always been with this project,

00:37:58 ◼   ► where does Apple draw that line in terms of below here,

00:38:01 ◼   ► we can't ship it 'cause it's just too much

00:38:03 ◼   ► like all the other products.

00:38:04 ◼   ► And is a really nice car that's more like a Lucid Air

00:38:09 ◼   ► or a Tesla Model S kind of like a really nice expensive,

00:38:14 ◼   ► but very good electric car, is that enough for Apple?

00:38:20 ◼   ► Or does Apple need to have that feature

00:38:22 ◼   ► that's gonna blow them away?

00:38:23 ◼   ► And that's my concern about this project

00:38:26 ◼   ► is it seems that rather than doing

00:38:28 ◼   ► a really nice electric car,

00:38:31 ◼   ► they're trying to find that feature that'll blow them away.

00:38:35 ◼   ► And I'm not sure that that feature is one

00:38:36 ◼   ► that they're gonna be able to execute on.

00:38:38 ◼   ► So if this rumor was, well, they're gonna do a car,

00:38:41 ◼   ► but it's gonna have really good self-driving software

00:38:43 ◼   ► that's gonna be much better than what Tesla is doing

00:38:45 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:38:46 ◼   ► It's like, okay, I could believe that that was their goal.

00:38:50 ◼   ► Leaving aside, again, the analysis

00:38:52 ◼   ► of would it really be that way?

00:38:53 ◼   ► I can believe that that's their goal.

00:38:55 ◼   ► But when it's like, you won't even have a steering wheel,

00:38:59 ◼   ► there'll be a secret steering wheel that will only pop out

00:39:01 ◼   ► in very specific circumstances for legal reasons,

00:39:04 ◼   ► but it won't even look like a steering wheel.

00:39:07 ◼   ► It'll look like, I don't even know what, right?

00:39:10 ◼   ► That's where they lose me because I just,

00:39:13 ◼   ► I don't think that that is within their reach

00:39:15 ◼   ► or quite frankly, anyone's reach.

00:39:17 ◼   ► To have a car so good at driving itself

00:39:20 ◼   ► that you don't need a steering wheel just seems impossible.

00:39:25 ◼   ► This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Capital One. Have you ever hit a technical

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00:40:01 ◼   ► with causal models as well so they can make sure they keep their mobile app up and running.

00:40:06 ◼   ► This doesn't happen by accident. Anomaly detection and incident response help determine

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00:40:42 ◼   ► in your wallet?

00:40:43 ◼   ► Our thanks to Capital One for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:40:46 ◼   ► Hey Jason, what's your password?

00:40:49 ◼   ► Uh, it is a long series of-

00:40:52 ◼   ► Is this really Myke? Are you phishing me right now?

00:40:55 ◼   ► It's a long series of numbers and letters.

00:40:57 ◼   ► While I still can, Jason Snow, I'm trying to steal your password.

00:41:02 ◼   ► Well, better be quick about it, because pretty soon I'm not going to have one.

00:41:07 ◼   ► I will read from press release on Apple's newsroom page.

00:41:11 ◼   ► the joint press release is even better.

00:41:13 ◼   ► Indeed. In a joint effort to make the web more secure and usable for all, Apple, Google

00:41:18 ◼   ► and Microsoft today announced plans to expand support for a common passwordless sign-in

00:41:30 ◼   ► standard created by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium. The new capability

00:41:37 ◼   ► what allow websites and apps to offer consistent, secure, and easy passwordless sign-ins to

00:41:44 ◼   ► consumers across devices and platforms."

00:41:48 ◼   ► I got distracted by the idea of like, I'm so happy that they added Microsoft to this

00:41:53 ◼   ► because the last time Apple and Google got together to do something, it caused so many

00:41:58 ◼   ► problems.

00:41:59 ◼   ► I remember the exposure notification stuff, how much of a nightmare that ended up being

00:42:04 ◼   ► for them.

00:42:05 ◼   ► - Well, don't forget the new smart home consortium

00:42:09 ◼   ► that hasn't happened yet.

00:42:10 ◼   ► - Matter.

00:42:11 ◼   ► - Right?

00:42:11 ◼   ► - There's too many involved in that one.

00:42:13 ◼   ► - Haven't happened yet.

00:42:15 ◼   ► - These are, this whole thing,

00:42:17 ◼   ► if you're not understanding what I'm talking about right now,

00:42:19 ◼   ► this is pretty complicated.

00:42:20 ◼   ► This is end to end passwordless options.

00:42:23 ◼   ► Basically allowing you to sign into a website

00:42:26 ◼   ► or an app or a service with the same method you use

00:42:30 ◼   ► to unlock say your phone.

00:42:31 ◼   ► This could be biometrics, Face ID, Touch ID,

00:42:34 ◼   ► or your passcode or password that you use

00:42:36 ◼   ► to unlock your phone.

00:42:38 ◼   ► - Let me give you a good example.

00:42:39 ◼   ► If you go to Apple's website and you try to log in

00:42:42 ◼   ► to see your orders or something,

00:42:45 ◼   ► on a modern macOS or iOS browser,

00:42:48 ◼   ► you don't get a password field.

00:42:51 ◼   ► You get a system authentication request

00:42:56 ◼   ► that has you do touch ID,

00:42:57 ◼   ► or I don't know whether the watch ID thing works

00:43:00 ◼   ► or you put in your password for your computer.

00:43:04 ◼   ► your device password, or face ID on iOS, right?

00:43:08 ◼   ► You don't put in the password.

00:43:13 ◼   ► You don't put in your Apple ID password.

00:43:15 ◼   ► You authenticate, at which point you're logged in.

00:43:18 ◼   ► The idea here is you would be able to do that everywhere.

00:43:22 ◼   ► - Yes, and also, that system dialogue

00:43:25 ◼   ► is just giving you an easier way to sign in.

00:43:28 ◼   ► You still have a password, right?

00:43:29 ◼   ► You still have the password.

00:43:31 ◼   ► This system removes passwords completely.

00:43:35 ◼   ► There aren't any.

00:43:36 ◼   ► You have a username,

00:43:38 ◼   ► and then your device takes over with the authentication.

00:43:42 ◼   ► - I actually don't know.

00:43:43 ◼   ► I think maybe there are cases in Apple's system

00:43:46 ◼   ► where you're authenticating using biometrics

00:43:48 ◼   ► or with your device password

00:43:51 ◼   ► that I don't know if it's sending your Apple ID password

00:43:56 ◼   ► at that point,

00:43:57 ◼   ► or if it's sending the signed cryptographic blob

00:44:00 ◼   ► verifies your identity.

00:44:02 ◼   ► - But that account, I still have a password though, right?

00:44:04 ◼   ► Like there is one, the service has a password for me.

00:44:08 ◼   ► - Sure, and I think in the future, I mean,

00:44:10 ◼   ► we can talk about some of the details here,

00:44:12 ◼   ► but I think there will probably be lots of cases

00:44:14 ◼   ► where you also have to have optionally a password

00:44:17 ◼   ► depending on what, you know,

00:44:18 ◼   ► or there's a per device password, a one-time password,

00:44:21 ◼   ► whatever it is.

00:44:22 ◼   ► But yeah, the idea is that you're not just putting in

00:44:24 ◼   ► your authentication so that your system can look up

00:44:28 ◼   ► in its little password manager what your password is

00:44:30 ◼   ► and send it.

00:44:31 ◼   ► The idea here is you basically sign up on this website

00:44:34 ◼   ► and say, this is me and there's a cryptographic exchange.

00:44:39 ◼   ► And then the next time you come back

00:44:40 ◼   ► and it wants you to log in,

00:44:42 ◼   ► you pass the proof that you're you

00:44:44 ◼   ► via a cryptographic exchange and it lets you in.

00:44:47 ◼   ► And that's it.

00:44:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I read in detail a little bit more

00:44:51 ◼   ► from this is something you linked to.

00:44:53 ◼   ► Dan Marne of Six Colors wrote up an article

00:44:57 ◼   ► about a WWDC session from 2021,

00:45:00 ◼   ► where Apple introduced their take on this.

00:45:03 ◼   ► So, and this was like, because it is based on a standard,

00:45:06 ◼   ► but now the large tech companies are like,

00:45:09 ◼   ► trying to make it a public thing and push it forward.

00:45:12 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:45:13 ◼   ► So this is, yeah, so Apple is already doing the work on this.

00:45:15 ◼   ► There's WebAuthn and Fido,

00:45:18 ◼   ► and the press release that came out last week

00:45:21 ◼   ► is essentially all three major operating system vendors

00:45:24 ◼   ► saying, yes, this is what we're going to do.

00:45:26 ◼   ► And so Apple's already been working on it.

00:45:27 ◼   ► It's in iOS 15 and Monterey, but it's disabled by default.

00:45:31 ◼   ► It's just meant to be used as a test

00:45:34 ◼   ► so people can test to this.

00:45:36 ◼   ► But, and you can watch the session if you want to.

00:45:39 ◼   ► And Dan's write-up is really good.

00:45:41 ◼   ► He wrote quite a lot about what's in the session.

00:45:44 ◼   ► And then you can also watch the session if you want to.

00:45:48 ◼   ► But it makes things way easier and way more secure

00:45:54 ◼   ► because it's not even using a password generator.

00:45:57 ◼   ► It's using this whole cryptographic thing,

00:45:59 ◼   ► and it's doing a lot of things that you're familiar with,

00:46:01 ◼   ► like a barcode where you're in your browser,

00:46:05 ◼   ► and your browser sees the barcode and says,

00:46:06 ◼   ► "Oh, here's the setup,

00:46:08 ◼   ► and it's all supposed to happen automatically."

00:46:10 ◼   ► And like, they are, it's not here yet,

00:46:13 ◼   ► but we're getting, if you've ever been like,

00:46:15 ◼   ► "Ah, I'm really tired of passwords being compromised

00:46:18 ◼   ► and password managers and all of those things,"

00:46:21 ◼   ► just know that the three major OS vendors are all working on this new standard that

00:46:27 ◼   ► should make everything way more secure.

00:46:31 ◼   ► >> Yeah, I will say there is a part of me, I can't get my head completely around how

00:46:35 ◼   ► this couldn't be spoofed, but I'm just going to assume that obviously this has been considered

00:46:39 ◼   ► and would be basically impossible to do. It's a little bit confusing to me, because you

00:46:45 ◼   ► pass this key, right? But like, why could the key not be intercepted? I don't fully

00:46:51 ◼   ► understand that part, but I'm just going to assume that it's fine.

00:46:59 ◼   ► I think it's all based on public key encryption. So the idea there is that

00:47:04 ◼   ► when the original link is made, a secret is exchanged, and then you're the only one who's

00:47:10 ◼   ► who's got the ability to make that secret essentially.

00:47:13 ◼   ► And that's how public key encryption works

00:47:16 ◼   ► in the most simplified version ever.

00:47:18 ◼   ► - And here's my issue with that, the word public,

00:47:20 ◼   ► that's where I start to get stuck.

00:47:23 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, well, no, but it's the public key means

00:47:25 ◼   ► anybody can decode, but only you can encode.

00:47:29 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:47:31 ◼   ► - Or anybody can encode, but only you can decode.

00:47:33 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the one. - One way or the other.

00:47:34 ◼   ► - Anyway, it's a one way thing.

00:47:38 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:47:38 ◼   ► - And that's the beauty of it. - They should be able to do better words.

00:47:40 ◼   ► Public is not a good word for passwords, right?

00:47:43 ◼   ► - Okay. - You see what I'm saying here?

00:47:44 ◼   ► - Well, it is. Okay, private key encryption.

00:47:46 ◼   ► - But that sounds better, though. - How about that? You feel better?

00:47:47 ◼   ► - Do you not agree with me, right? - Okay.

00:47:49 ◼   ► - Like, just as a way to try and explain this to someone like me,

00:47:52 ◼   ► if it was called private, it makes me feel better than the word public.

00:47:56 ◼   ► - It's super secret private encryption format.

00:47:58 ◼   ► - I know you're making fun of me now, but you understand what I'm saying, right?

00:48:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do. - Like, this is where stuff like this

00:48:03 ◼   ► can start to get complicated for someone when you're trying to explain it to them.

00:48:06 ◼   ► That's why instead of calling it that, they're just going to call it a web often or Fido.

00:48:10 ◼   ► Well, Apple call them pass keys, which I think is a pretty good way of describing it.

00:48:17 ◼   ► So part of the thinking around this is like, what it should do is reduce a couple of things

00:48:22 ◼   ► quite significantly.

00:48:24 ◼   ► One would be phishing attempts because there isn't a password you can give to a malicious

00:48:28 ◼   ► website.

00:48:29 ◼   ► There isn't a password that you can give to somebody over email or over the phone or whatever

00:48:33 ◼   ► because there is no password,

00:48:35 ◼   ► and SMS interception of two-factor codes would go away

00:48:40 ◼   ► because in essence, there can always be a second factor,

00:48:45 ◼   ► which is another device.

00:48:49 ◼   ► I don't understand how that would work exactly on, say,

00:48:53 ◼   ► if you were logging in on your phone, right?

00:48:56 ◼   ► There isn't a two-factor part.

00:48:58 ◼   ► - And there's a question about what happens

00:49:00 ◼   ► if you've got a shared account

00:49:01 ◼   ► where like multiple people need to be logged into it.

00:49:04 ◼   ► But again, I'm without diving deep into this,

00:49:08 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure that the people working on this

00:49:10 ◼   ► are anticipating all of these uses

00:49:12 ◼   ► and are working on ways around it, right?

00:49:14 ◼   ► The idea here though, is that the,

00:49:16 ◼   ► that you would put in a username and a password

00:49:19 ◼   ► and submit it as a way to control your presence

00:49:22 ◼   ► on the internet is going to be replaced

00:49:25 ◼   ► by something more secure.

00:49:27 ◼   ► And that's the big picture thing, right?

00:49:29 ◼   ► - That's good, personally.

00:49:30 ◼   ► I think this is a good idea.

00:49:32 ◼   ► I think as our lives are moving increasingly online,

00:49:37 ◼   ► the requirement for individuals to have strong passwords

00:49:43 ◼   ► and two-factor and a system where both of those things

00:49:51 ◼   ► are not linked to anything else that you own, right?

00:49:55 ◼   ► You know, we use the same password twice.

00:49:57 ◼   ► You want to make sure you use two-factor,

00:49:58 ◼   ► but ooh, not SMS messaging.

00:50:01 ◼   ► The level of complexity that just an individual user

00:50:04 ◼   ► has to have to try and keep any kind of modicum

00:50:07 ◼   ► of security these days,

00:50:08 ◼   ► because even if you do all the right things,

00:50:10 ◼   ► a service can be hacked and your password's stolen,

00:50:14 ◼   ► and your account is compromised, right?

00:50:15 ◼   ► - Right.

00:50:16 ◼   ► - Everything that you have to do

00:50:18 ◼   ► to still only be partly secured,

00:50:21 ◼   ► it's becoming too complicated.

00:50:23 ◼   ► And things like the Apple doing the Iker keychain

00:50:27 ◼   ► and the strong passwords and all that kind of stuff.

00:50:29 ◼   ► That's only part of the way, right?

00:50:31 ◼   ► Like it only stops like half of the stuff

00:50:34 ◼   ► from going wrong, you know?

00:50:35 ◼   ► - And the truth is that even,

00:50:39 ◼   ► this is frustrating for very technical people.

00:50:42 ◼   ► For non-technical people, it's terrible, right?

00:50:45 ◼   ► Like lots of people don't use a password manager.

00:50:48 ◼   ► Lots of people use,

00:50:49 ◼   ► that still use the same password everywhere.

00:50:51 ◼   ► Or they've got a sheet of paper or a notebook

00:50:54 ◼   ► and they write down their passwords, right?

00:50:56 ◼   ► Like, passwords are bad, not just because they're insecure,

00:51:01 ◼   ► but because they're hard to manage, right?

00:51:02 ◼   ► Passwords are bad because they're hard to manage.

00:51:05 ◼   ► And I know we're gonna talk about

00:51:07 ◼   ► one password, the product, in a second,

00:51:09 ◼   ► but one of the ideas behind one password

00:51:11 ◼   ► and other password managers is you reduce it

00:51:14 ◼   ► to sort of a single way of authentication,

00:51:16 ◼   ► and then everything else is handled for you.

00:51:18 ◼   ► And that's better, right?

00:51:21 ◼   ► But you have to get there.

00:51:22 ◼   ► And even Apple adding password managers

00:51:24 ◼   ► to iOS and macOS. Still a lot of people don't use them, a lot of people don't understand

00:51:29 ◼   ► them. And then the more complex it gets, well now you need a two-factor thing and you probably

00:51:33 ◼   ► shouldn't put that as an SMS message, it should be on your phone and how do you get it in.

00:51:36 ◼   ► John Syracuse on ATP last week was talking about how hard it was to get barcode authentication

00:51:42 ◼   ► for his son's college login, right? And that was a highly technical person who couldn't

00:51:46 ◼   ► get it to work. Even for technical people, it's hard. For non-technical people, it's

00:51:51 ◼   ► very, very hard and that is going to be the weak point where people try to exploit them

00:51:57 ◼   ► and rob them and it's bad. So there has to be like a new way of doing this and this is

00:52:04 ◼   ► it. And it's exciting because a lot of smart security people have been working for a long

00:52:09 ◼   ► time to try to find, oh, this is like email being totally open because the internet was

00:52:15 ◼   ► invented when there were no security risks and everybody was trusted. And as a result,

00:52:21 ◼   ► is just broken forever, right? Well, this is kind of like that for passwords, which

00:52:24 ◼   ► is when the web came into being, things weren't even secure. It was unsecure and you would

00:52:30 ◼   ► just send your password insecurely and it's got to change, right? There's too much valuable

00:52:37 ◼   ► stuff on the internet. It needs to change. And we've been adding all these other multi-factor

00:52:41 ◼   ► security things on top of it and telling people to have a password manager and have these

00:52:46 ◼   ► long chains of unrememorable things in order to get those things in there. And it's all

00:52:53 ◼   ► too much, right? So I'm excited that this is not only happening, but that this is not

00:52:57 ◼   ► one of those cases where the big tech companies are all walking around like, "Look, we're

00:53:03 ◼   ► the coolest. We've got the best idea." They all realize for this to work, they have to

00:53:06 ◼   ► work together. And that's why there's this alliance and Fido and the W3C is behind this

00:53:14 ◼   ► and they're gonna make this a thing, even if it does take probably, you know, half a

00:53:19 ◼   ► decade or a decade for it to be everywhere. At least the end is in sight now for passwords,

00:53:24 ◼   ► I think that's a good thing.

00:53:25 ◼   ► - Yep, and there are still things I wanna, like, I would love to know more about, like,

00:53:31 ◼   ► if it's, what happens if you lose a device, how do you get access to your stuff again

00:53:35 ◼   ► on a new device?

00:53:36 ◼   ► - Sure, sure, and Apple and Google and Microsoft will probably need to be involved in that,

00:53:41 ◼   ► They're gonna probably need to be able to make it,

00:53:43 ◼   ► it's a little like, you know, Apple warning you

00:53:45 ◼   ► about not having a backup access code

00:53:47 ◼   ► for your iCloud or whatever.

00:53:49 ◼   ► It's like, that's gonna need to be part of this,

00:53:51 ◼   ► if I lose my phone, how do I get back in?

00:53:54 ◼   ► That's gonna have to be part of the deal.

00:53:55 ◼   ► - Well, like if I switch from iOS to Android, right?

00:53:58 ◼   ► Like that should be a seamless process,

00:54:00 ◼   ► which is why these companies,

00:54:01 ◼   ► one of the reasons I'm sure these companies work together

00:54:03 ◼   ► is to make that happen.

00:54:04 ◼   ► 'Cause if they all believe that this should be the case,

00:54:07 ◼   ► they have to work together

00:54:09 ◼   ► as the three dominant companies in the space, right?

00:54:11 ◼   ► And then stuff like enforcing security.

00:54:14 ◼   ► Like if I only have a four digit code on my iPhone

00:54:17 ◼   ► and that's how I use for this, like that's not enough.

00:54:20 ◼   ► - Right.

00:54:21 ◼   ► Yeah, well you would need to do your face ID

00:54:23 ◼   ► or something else like that.

00:54:24 ◼   ► They're gonna have to be authentication standards

00:54:27 ◼   ► for this stuff.

00:54:28 ◼   ► I think it's much more likely going to be stuff like that

00:54:31 ◼   ► than it is one, two, three, four,

00:54:34 ◼   ► which we as we know is your password.

00:54:36 ◼   ► - Everybody knows that.

00:54:38 ◼   ► - One, two, three, four.

00:54:39 ◼   ► Well, I have other passwords

00:54:42 ◼   ► and they're stored in 1Password

00:54:43 ◼   ► and 1Password at 8 just got released.

00:54:45 ◼   ► You had an article that you wrote on 6 Colors about it.

00:54:48 ◼   ► I kind of just wanted to get your opinion on this,

00:54:51 ◼   ► like thinking about, you know,

00:54:53 ◼   ► talking about passwords today.

00:54:54 ◼   ► This is what we're both currently using

00:54:56 ◼   ► for our password management.

00:54:57 ◼   ► Obviously, 1Password at 8 was controversial

00:55:01 ◼   ► when it was first unveiled.

00:55:03 ◼   ► - Right, late last summer.

00:55:05 ◼   ► It's been in beta a very long time.

00:55:07 ◼   ► controversial primarily because of what it represented.

00:55:12 ◼   ► Okay, there's two things.

00:55:13 ◼   ► And you and I, you were a guest

00:55:14 ◼   ► on the Six Colors podcast last Friday

00:55:16 ◼   ► for our subscribers. - It was.

00:55:17 ◼   ► - We talked about this.

00:55:18 ◼   ► That's one of the things you get

00:55:19 ◼   ► by being a Six Colors subscriber is a podcast.

00:55:21 ◼   ► It's usually me and Dan, but it was Myke this time.

00:55:25 ◼   ► And like part of 1Password is what it represents.

00:55:28 ◼   ► On one level, 1Password 8 doesn't use the traditional method

00:55:35 ◼   ► of Mac app development.

00:55:37 ◼   ► They basically threw away their Mac app

00:55:38 ◼   ► and they're using a cross-platform

00:55:40 ◼   ► based on web standards, Electron interface

00:55:46 ◼   ► on top of a cross-platform binary

00:55:48 ◼   ► that they wrote using the Rust programming language,

00:55:50 ◼   ► which again, you shouldn't ever need to know

00:55:52 ◼   ► what programming language your program was written in,

00:55:55 ◼   ► but just they have a new approach.

00:55:57 ◼   ► And this is what powers their Linux version

00:55:58 ◼   ► and it powers their Windows version

00:56:00 ◼   ► and now their Mac version as well.

00:56:02 ◼   ► And so people who are concerned about the health of the Mac

00:56:05 ◼   ► and the future of apps on the Mac were concerned about that.

00:56:07 ◼   ► And I was concerned about that, right?

00:56:09 ◼   ► It's like, it's not a good sign.

00:56:10 ◼   ► I understand why they did it, but it's not a great sign.

00:56:13 ◼   ► I will say 10 months later, the app is good.

00:56:17 ◼   ► The app is good.

00:56:18 ◼   ► I think the interface is good.

00:56:20 ◼   ► Maybe it's the Apple Silicon talking,

00:56:22 ◼   ► 'cause I upgraded to this when I went to the Mac studio,

00:56:26 ◼   ► but like, I think it's fast.

00:56:28 ◼   ► I think it's responsive.

00:56:28 ◼   ► I think it looks good.

00:56:29 ◼   ► They got rid of a lot of kind of Chrome around the UI

00:56:32 ◼   ► that they didn't need.

00:56:33 ◼   ► They did make some changes to try to make it feel

00:56:35 ◼   ► more Mac-like and less like a fake app.

00:56:37 ◼   ► Like the preferences window,

00:56:38 ◼   ► when I tested the first beta in August last year,

00:56:42 ◼   ► was a fake window, kind of like you see in Catalyst,

00:56:44 ◼   ► where they put up a window,

00:56:46 ◼   ► but it's inside the other window suspiciously.

00:56:48 ◼   ► And if you try to drag that window somewhere else,

00:56:50 ◼   ► it doesn't go anywhere, 'cause it's not really a window.

00:56:53 ◼   ► It's a fake window inside the other window.

00:56:55 ◼   ► Well, their preferences window is a real window now, right?

00:56:57 ◼   ► Like they, there are a lot of interface niceties

00:57:00 ◼   ► that they have added.

00:57:01 ◼   ► They put a lot of effort into this.

00:57:02 ◼   ► - It doesn't look anything like a Mac preferences window.

00:57:06 ◼   ► However, you know, I would say I'm one of the first people

00:57:09 ◼   ► to say, I don't think that any developer should be forced

00:57:12 ◼   ► to design anything any specific way.

00:57:15 ◼   ► I think they should be able to choose their own.

00:57:17 ◼   ► - I think its preferences window is kind of modern Mac-like

00:57:20 ◼   ► in the sense that it's got the little sidebar

00:57:21 ◼   ► with the little colored icons.

00:57:23 ◼   ► And I think that that's a direction

00:57:24 ◼   ► that Apple's been going to.

00:57:26 ◼   ► - It doesn't, but it doesn't look like it.

00:57:27 ◼   ► Like, you know, if I go to quote unquote,

00:57:29 ◼   ► a good Mac app, it doesn't look like that.

00:57:32 ◼   ► But I'm just saying, right, like they've made it better.

00:57:36 ◼   ► It's got its own look, but I think 1Password

00:57:38 ◼   ► is a big enough company that they can dictate

00:57:40 ◼   ► the way they want their apps to be designed.

00:57:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, it feels modern to me.

00:57:43 ◼   ► It doesn't, what it doesn't do is make me feel like

00:57:46 ◼   ► I'm looking at a Windows app that's been brought to the Mac.

00:57:48 ◼   ► So whatever they did, it doesn't feel to me

00:57:52 ◼   ► like an intruder on the platform, which is the big,

00:57:54 ◼   ► for me, that's the big concern,

00:57:56 ◼   ► is there's variation on your platform,

00:57:58 ◼   ► but there are also the things that are using

00:58:00 ◼   ► the metaphors wrong.

00:58:01 ◼   ► And those feel like alien intrusions on your platform.

00:58:05 ◼   ► And when I use Streamlabs or something,

00:58:08 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, this is a cross-platform application

00:58:11 ◼   ► that is not really made for the Mac,

00:58:13 ◼   ► even though it works on the Mac and it doesn't work like it,

00:58:15 ◼   ► One Passer doesn't feel like that.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Anyway, the other thing One Passer represents

00:58:19 ◼   ► is a lot of people who don't like changes

00:58:21 ◼   ► in how software business models work.

00:58:23 ◼   ► And I get it, right?

00:58:24 ◼   ► This is a version of the Marco Arment is sad

00:58:28 ◼   ► because the HomePods are dying and there's no new HomePod

00:58:33 ◼   ► and there's no other product in the market

00:58:35 ◼   ► that really fits what a HomePod is.

00:58:37 ◼   ► And so even though not a lot of people bought HomePods,

00:58:40 ◼   ► the people who bought them liked them

00:58:42 ◼   ► and there is no replacement and that sucks.

00:58:44 ◼   ► And that's totally true.

00:58:45 ◼   ► Well, with 1Password it's, they went to a subscription model

00:58:48 ◼   ► and they put everything in the cloud.

00:58:50 ◼   ► And so if you're somebody who doesn't want a subscription

00:58:52 ◼   ► or you don't want your stuff synced into their cloud,

00:58:56 ◼   ► you can't use 1PasswordAid.

00:58:58 ◼   ► And I would say, yes, that is,

00:59:02 ◼   ► I'm not one of those people, I don't mind the subscription

00:59:04 ◼   ► and I don't mind the cloud syncing, it's very convenient.

00:59:07 ◼   ► But if you're somebody who has been left behind

00:59:08 ◼   ► by changes in 1Password's business model,

00:59:10 ◼   ► also plenty of reason to be angry, I get it,

00:59:12 ◼   ► perfectly natural.

00:59:14 ◼   ► That all said, if you take those things out of the equation

00:59:17 ◼   ► and you don't have to, but I'm going to right now,

00:59:20 ◼   ► the app is actually pretty good,

00:59:22 ◼   ► It's got some really nice features.

00:59:23 ◼   ► It's got this new like quick access bar.

00:59:27 ◼   ► That's kind of like a launch bar or spotlight bar that lets you very quickly

00:59:30 ◼   ► look up any password and copy it to your clipboard.

00:59:33 ◼   ► It's got an autofill feature that uses the accessibility settings in Mac OS.

00:59:36 ◼   ► So that if you're in an app that's asking for a password, You can very quickly

00:59:41 ◼   ► auto-fill that apps with a password out of one password, which you couldn't

00:59:46 ◼   ► do before, which is really nice.

00:59:48 ◼   ► So there's a lot of good new features in it.

00:59:50 ◼   ► And it works really well for me.

00:59:53 ◼   ► And I've got this touch ID on this keyboard

00:59:57 ◼   ► that's Velcroed under the bottom of my desk.

00:59:58 ◼   ► You maybe you've heard of that, Myke.

01:00:01 ◼   ► I haven't yet taken it apart

01:00:02 ◼   ► and reduced it to just a button.

01:00:04 ◼   ► And that, so authenticating with touch ID is super easy.

01:00:06 ◼   ► I know that's not a new feature,

01:00:07 ◼   ► but like it's new to me to be able to do that.

01:00:11 ◼   ► And yeah, so I'm pretty happy with it.

01:00:13 ◼   ► I think it's actually a pretty good update

01:00:15 ◼   ► that adds some very useful Mac features

01:00:18 ◼   ► and like the autofill that they have to use Apple's,

01:00:22 ◼   ► you know, frameworks in order to do that.

01:00:24 ◼   ► And they did that.

01:00:25 ◼   ► So it doesn't feel like a tossed off cross-platform product

01:00:28 ◼   ► from a company that doesn't care about the Mac.

01:00:30 ◼   ► And so we have the background of what they did,

01:00:35 ◼   ► but if you look at what the product is,

01:00:37 ◼   ► I don't think it fits the narrative.

01:00:39 ◼   ► - Do you think this past key future

01:00:42 ◼   ► would be a concern for 1Password?

01:00:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, there's this question of,

01:00:47 ◼   ► okay, if we're in the passwordless future,

01:00:49 ◼   ► what do password managers represent?

01:00:51 ◼   ► I think what you're seeing is, well, one,

01:00:54 ◼   ► they are positioning themselves for more kind of like group

01:00:57 ◼   ► and corporate use where you've got shared identities

01:00:59 ◼   ► and shared information across, which makes sense.

01:01:03 ◼   ► And I think if you are a smart product manager,

01:01:07 ◼   ► you are looking at the development

01:01:09 ◼   ► of the passwordless future and saying to yourself,

01:01:13 ◼   ► where does this fall down?

01:01:14 ◼   ► Where are the edge cases here?

01:01:16 ◼   ► And it's just like when Apple Sherlock something, right?

01:01:18 ◼   ► It's like they already know

01:01:19 ◼   ► that Apple is doing a password manager.

01:01:21 ◼   ► So like it's, so who do we serve?

01:01:24 ◼   ► We serve people for whom the built-in system stuff

01:01:26 ◼   ► is not enough.

01:01:27 ◼   ► So my guess is that there's absolutely still gonna be

01:01:30 ◼   ► a business here because of the limitations

01:01:33 ◼   ► of the new password lists sort of system,

01:01:36 ◼   ► the all the edge cases, all the yeah,

01:01:38 ◼   ► but what if you're in an organization that needs this,

01:01:40 ◼   ► or you have to share your identity here,

01:01:43 ◼   ► or you need to share this identity automatically

01:01:47 ◼   ► and this is a way to do that,

01:01:49 ◼   ► I'm sure they will find ways.

01:01:50 ◼   ► But I don't know the details enough of the new stuff

01:01:52 ◼   ► to know what those are, but I'm sure they exist.

01:01:57 ◼   ► And I'm sure that it's on their roadmap

01:01:58 ◼   ► to make sure that there is an audience

01:02:03 ◼   ► that will pay them for whatever they offer.

01:02:06 ◼   ► That all said, it may be that the percentage,

01:02:09 ◼   ► it's already the case that the percentage of people

01:02:11 ◼   ► who are on the Mac or iOS who need one password

01:02:13 ◼   ► is less than it was before because of Apple,

01:02:16 ◼   ► because Apple has built a password manager in

01:02:18 ◼   ► and it's pretty good.

01:02:19 ◼   ► And assuming Apple keeps doing,

01:02:20 ◼   ► working on that and improving that,

01:02:23 ◼   ► it's going to make the percentage of people

01:02:25 ◼   ► who need to buy a password manager on macOS and iOS

01:02:28 ◼   ► smaller and smaller.

01:02:29 ◼   ► And this passwordless thing will make it smaller and smaller.

01:02:33 ◼   ► Doesn't mean there isn't a good business there.

01:02:36 ◼   ► But I think one of the reasons that they're focused on

01:02:39 ◼   ► growing their small business and enterprise part of 1Password is because those are places

01:02:49 ◼   ► with more stringent security requirements and complex situations that will probably

01:02:57 ◼   ► be more likely to need something like 1Password than a random person who just needs to save

01:03:03 ◼   ► their passwords. They know that those people are going to increasingly just use what's

01:03:07 ◼   ► built in and so you need to find the edge cases. I'm sure they will.

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01:05:36 ◼   ► Let's finish up today's episode as we always do with some #AskUpgradeQuestions.

01:05:42 ◼   ► Dotisopropyl, which sounds like it, I don't know what that is, but it sounds like some kind of

01:05:48 ◼   ► chemical. I think it's dot isopropyl like rubbing alcohol, dot. No, I'm going with dotisopropyl.

01:05:54 ◼   ► - I don't think that's it, but okay.

01:05:57 ◼   ► - Have you, Jason, looked into any news reading service

01:06:00 ◼   ► for your e-reader?

01:06:01 ◼   ► Do you send longer articles to it via email file transfer?

01:06:05 ◼   ► Basically, do you ever read stuff that's not books, right,

01:06:08 ◼   ► on your e-readers?

01:06:09 ◼   ► And if you do, how do you send stuff there?

01:06:12 ◼   ► - I do, and since I'm using a Kobo,

01:06:14 ◼   ► Kobo has Pocket built in.

01:06:18 ◼   ► So I just use Pocket.

01:06:20 ◼   ► I have a Pocket extension on my devices

01:06:24 ◼   ► and Safari on the Mac,

01:06:26 ◼   ► there's a pocket button in the toolbar

01:06:28 ◼   ► and on iOS you just do share to pocket

01:06:31 ◼   ► and it shares it.

01:06:32 ◼   ► And then those sync with the Kobo

01:06:35 ◼   ► in the little pocket app basically

01:06:37 ◼   ► that's on the Kobo. - That's cool.

01:06:38 ◼   ► - And it's, Kobo doesn't have an app store of any kind

01:06:42 ◼   ► but it has pocket integration.

01:06:44 ◼   ► So it's like a little weird app inside of Kobo.

01:06:48 ◼   ► But that's what I do.

01:06:49 ◼   ► If there's a really long article

01:06:50 ◼   ► and I'm like, oh man, I'm not gonna read this now.

01:06:52 ◼   ► and it's a long article that it's probably evergreen.

01:06:56 ◼   ► I send that to Pocket and it shows up in the Kobo

01:06:58 ◼   ► and I can read it there.

01:07:00 ◼   ► - Is that all you use Pocket for?

01:07:02 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:07:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, so you don't use like a read later service

01:07:05 ◼   ► for stuff anymore?

01:07:07 ◼   ► - I haven't used a read later service

01:07:08 ◼   ► for stuff like that in a long time.

01:07:09 ◼   ► I used to use Instapaper and send it to the Kindle

01:07:12 ◼   ► when I had the Kindle,

01:07:13 ◼   ► but otherwise I'll just leave a tab open and read it

01:07:18 ◼   ► if I'm gonna read it sometime soon.

01:07:20 ◼   ► It's really for longer stuff

01:07:21 ◼   ► where I'm just not gonna get to it.

01:07:22 ◼   ► And I'm like, wow, this is a really long article

01:07:24 ◼   ► and I'd like to read it,

01:07:25 ◼   ► but I don't know when that's gonna happen.

01:07:27 ◼   ► And then that's when I'll send it off.

01:07:29 ◼   ► I do a lot of reading in NetNewswire now.

01:07:31 ◼   ► I know I wrote about this,

01:07:32 ◼   ► but like newsletters and stuff get collected in there.

01:07:35 ◼   ► And if it's a sub stack, it's also in the sub stack app.

01:07:38 ◼   ► So I've got a bunch of other places where I do reading

01:07:40 ◼   ► that the Kobo is really only for books

01:07:43 ◼   ► and the occasional pocket saved long article.

01:07:49 ◼   ► And honestly, I've thought about making it be that

01:07:52 ◼   ► instead of using Pocket,

01:07:53 ◼   ► I just use some method of emailing that article

01:07:56 ◼   ► to my NetNewsWire instead.

01:08:00 ◼   ► But that brings-

01:08:01 ◼   ► - So, remind me, does NetNewsWire have an email address

01:08:04 ◼   ► that you set in say, Substack or are you doing it-

01:08:07 ◼   ► - No, it's your RSS service.

01:08:09 ◼   ► So I'm using Feedbin.

01:08:10 ◼   ► So Feedbin has a- - So sending it to Feedbin.

01:08:12 ◼   ► That's it. - An email address

01:08:14 ◼   ► that I can send anything to.

01:08:16 ◼   ► The problem is with an article,

01:08:17 ◼   ► you've got to grab the text out of the article and email it and that can be difficult because

01:08:22 ◼   ► the websites will fight you and pockets already taken care of it so I just sort of embrace

01:08:28 ◼   ► that and send it to the kobo.

01:08:30 ◼   ► I just wish everybody would do what you and Max Barkey and Max Stories do where you just

01:08:38 ◼   ► create an RSS feed for members like yeah that's what I wished everybody would do that like

01:08:44 ◼   ► that's what I want. I have, I use Feedbin, but I don't want to do all of that. I just

01:08:49 ◼   ► want an RSS feed instead of the email. If there's anybody out there from Substack, do

01:08:55 ◼   ► an RSS feed, please. Like you can authenticate it, you can tie it to the membership. Well,

01:09:00 ◼   ► they don't want to because they want you to use their app now, right? But I don't want

01:09:04 ◼   ► to use their app. I know, and neither do I, but that's what they want. They want you to

01:09:08 ◼   ► use their app. Yeah, I'm sure they do. So instead, I'm forwarding all of their mail

01:09:11 ◼   ► to feed bin and doing that instead.

01:09:14 ◼   ► And that's fine, that works fine.

01:09:17 ◼   ► I do, you know, my morning session,

01:09:19 ◼   ► my morning reading when I'm drinking my tea

01:09:21 ◼   ► and eating my breakfast,

01:09:22 ◼   ► I am looking at newsletters and RSS feeds

01:09:25 ◼   ► in that newswire on my iPad.

01:09:27 ◼   ► So basically that's the answer is,

01:09:30 ◼   ► most of my reading happens on my iPad,

01:09:31 ◼   ► but there are longer articles that I will send

01:09:34 ◼   ► to Pocket and read on the Kobo.

01:09:36 ◼   ► - Rick writes in and says,

01:09:40 ◼   ► "Have either of you tried the Keychron Q3 keyboard?

01:09:43 ◼   ► It looks like a solid upgrade for my current K2 model."

01:09:47 ◼   ► Neither of us have tried it.

01:09:48 ◼   ► I can speak for both of us on that one.

01:09:50 ◼   ► - You were my keyboard representative here.

01:09:52 ◼   ► - Yes, no problem.

01:09:54 ◼   ► But what I will say is the answer is yes,

01:09:56 ◼   ► it will be an upgrade.

01:09:57 ◼   ► The Q models of Keychron keyboards

01:10:00 ◼   ► are the "custom" quote unquote versions of these.

01:10:05 ◼   ► They are made of better materials.

01:10:08 ◼   ► They are made in such a way that you can customize them

01:10:11 ◼   ► in ways that you would want to,

01:10:12 ◼   ► with different switches, different key caps,

01:10:14 ◼   ► that kind of stuff.

01:10:15 ◼   ► It is their premium offering.

01:10:17 ◼   ► I have used the Q1,

01:10:19 ◼   ► Jason has that Q1,

01:10:20 ◼   ► and has used it way more than me.

01:10:22 ◼   ► They learned a lot from that initial Q1,

01:10:25 ◼   ► the new Keychron Q1 is updated,

01:10:30 ◼   ► and then the Q2 and Q3 were both made with those learnings.

01:10:34 ◼   ► Just about some tolerances, some sound stuff,

01:10:36 ◼   ► they've made some great improvements.

01:10:38 ◼   ► So if you are using any of Keychron's K series of boards

01:10:41 ◼   ► and enjoy it, but would want something more,

01:10:44 ◼   ► move to their Q series of boards.

01:10:46 ◼   ► They are great.

01:10:47 ◼   ► They're like legitimately great,

01:10:48 ◼   ► available constantly for what you get,

01:10:53 ◼   ► incredible prices, like for what it takes to get something

01:10:58 ◼   ► outside of what Keychron's making,

01:11:00 ◼   ► you can go into many different areas as I do

01:11:03 ◼   ► and get way more particular with it.

01:11:05 ◼   ► but if you're just gonna get started,

01:11:07 ◼   ► they have a bunch of colors, they're really good,

01:11:08 ◼   ► and so you can check them out.

01:11:10 ◼   ► There are companies that do things that I much prefer,

01:11:15 ◼   ► but if you're getting started

01:11:16 ◼   ► or you're looking for some kind of in-stock thing,

01:11:18 ◼   ► Keychron do a great job.

01:11:19 ◼   ► Morky asks, aside from the Apple Watch,

01:11:25 ◼   ► do either of you use smart health monitoring devices

01:11:28 ◼   ► like scales or sleep trackers or blood pressure monitors

01:11:31 ◼   ► or anything like that?

01:11:32 ◼   ► Do you use any of this kind of stuff?

01:11:34 ◼   ► I have, I think I mentioned it here before.

01:11:37 ◼   ► I have a blood pressure monitor that is smart

01:11:40 ◼   ► in the sense that it's got Bluetooth

01:11:41 ◼   ► and it will sync with an app that puts it in Apple Health.

01:11:44 ◼   ► Although the real point to it is that I put it on my arm

01:11:47 ◼   ► and I press the button and I can get

01:11:48 ◼   ► a blood pressure reading, which is nice.

01:11:51 ◼   ► - Do you know the name of the company that makes that?

01:11:53 ◼   ► - Oh, no.

01:11:56 ◼   ► - Do you think you could find it

01:11:57 ◼   ► so I could put it in the show notes at least?

01:11:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, I can put it in the show notes.

01:12:00 ◼   ► That is probably the only,

01:12:03 ◼   ► other than the Apple Watch, right,

01:12:04 ◼   ► is the only thing that I'm using for that.

01:12:06 ◼   ► - I had the Wything scales, you know,

01:12:10 ◼   ► like the old school Bluetooth scales

01:12:15 ◼   ► that everybody has, I guess,

01:12:17 ◼   ► if you have these kinds of things.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Mine are Wything scales, they got rebranded,

01:12:21 ◼   ► the app got rebranded to Nokia

01:12:23 ◼   ► and now it's back to Wything again, which is hilarious.

01:12:26 ◼   ► The guy, in case you're not familiar,

01:12:28 ◼   ► the guy who made that company,

01:12:30 ◼   ► was bought by, the company was bought by Nokia,

01:12:33 ◼   ► that guy then bought it back from Nokia for less than he sold it to them for and

01:12:39 ◼   ► it's back to being YThings again and so I've kind of gone a complete 360 with

01:12:45 ◼   ► mine but yeah I like them they're just like a good scales and I just like that

01:12:50 ◼   ► I don't need to do anything and it automatically updates my stuff in Apple

01:12:56 ◼   ► Health if I want to do my weight and all that kind of stuff on it so it's great.

01:13:00 ◼   ► And now we have the answer.

01:13:01 ◼   ► My blood pressure monitor that I bought

01:13:06 ◼   ► is the Omron Evolve.

01:13:08 ◼   ► - Ooh.

01:13:09 ◼   ► - Yes, well, you know, what you're gonna do,

01:13:13 ◼   ► you gotta evolve.

01:13:15 ◼   ► And it's a, yeah, it's a Bluetooth syncing fancy thing.

01:13:20 ◼   ► - Omron Evolve, look at that.

01:13:23 ◼   ► Oh, it looks scary to me.

01:13:26 ◼   ► - Oh, it's like, yeah, you better put it on your wrist

01:13:29 ◼   ► it'll zap you with a laser or something. Evolve without an E. Without an E, no. They've evolved

01:13:35 ◼   ► past the need for an E. Who needs it? At the beginning, at the end, the beginning still has

01:13:39 ◼   ► one but the redundant E has been dropped. And Jajura asks, "MacPro, do you have some price bets

01:13:47 ◼   ► and are you going to apply the Snell algorithm for pricing?" What is the Snell algorithm? Is it

01:13:55 ◼   ► double it and add 50 or something? What is it? It's no, it's consider the price you want,

01:14:02 ◼   ► raise the price by a, I mean it should probably be a percentage, but raise the price by $50 or $100

01:14:10 ◼   ► or $200. For a Mac Pro I'd say raise the price by $200 from that, maybe $500 from that, and then

01:14:16 ◼   ► and round up.

01:14:17 ◼   ► Basically, the Snell algorithm is more of an art form

01:14:23 ◼   ► and it's find the price you want,

01:14:27 ◼   ► increase it to a painful price that you don't want,

01:14:30 ◼   ► but you might pay for, and then raise it a second time.

01:14:34 ◼   ► And that will be the price.

01:14:35 ◼   ► - Okay. - It's not always the case.

01:14:38 ◼   ► I applied this algorithm to the studio display

01:14:40 ◼   ► and I came up with something like $2,000

01:14:43 ◼   ► and it was less than that, it was 1600.

01:14:45 ◼   ► So that, you know, sometimes Apple surprises you.

01:14:48 ◼   ► Mac Pro, you know, Mac Studio,

01:14:50 ◼   ► to start with a Mac Studio, what?

01:14:53 ◼   ► You've got to start at 5,000

01:14:56 ◼   ► with a high-end model, right?

01:14:57 ◼   ► - Four.

01:14:58 ◼   ► - Is it 4,000 for the base?

01:15:02 ◼   ► - The Ultra.

01:15:03 ◼   ► - Ultra? - Yeah.

01:15:04 ◼   ► - 'Cause I think to figure out what the Mac Pro price is,

01:15:09 ◼   ► you have to start with the Mac Studio Ultra.

01:15:13 ◼   ► - That's a good point.

01:15:14 ◼   ► I wasn't thinking about that.

01:15:15 ◼   ► but yes, of course you have to start with that, right?

01:15:17 ◼   ► And that's 20 core CPU, 48 core GPU.

01:15:21 ◼   ► That's 64.

01:15:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, so we're gonna add a thousand.

01:15:25 ◼   ► We're gonna add a thousand to it.

01:15:26 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:15:27 ◼   ► - Because we're gonna go to the 64 core GPU,

01:15:30 ◼   ► 32 core neural engine.

01:15:32 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:15:32 ◼   ► - And I'm gonna say that's $5,000.

01:15:35 ◼   ► So I think the Mac Pro could not start for less than $5,000.

01:15:40 ◼   ► - It currently starts at 5999, so.

01:15:43 ◼   ► - The Intel model.

01:15:44 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm. - Yeah.

01:15:45 ◼   ► So I'm gonna say 6,000 is the least it will cost.

01:15:50 ◼   ► And that will be for a disappointing version

01:15:53 ◼   ► that's got fewer cores than you'd like

01:15:55 ◼   ► for your $6,000 Mac Pro.

01:15:57 ◼   ► - And like 64 gigabytes of RAM, right?

01:16:01 ◼   ► - Yeah. - It's not,

01:16:01 ◼   ► it's gonna be pretty sad.

01:16:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, and they might start it at 128

01:16:05 ◼   ► or something like that. - Oh my God, Jason,

01:16:07 ◼   ► it currently, the six grand one, I forgot about this,

01:16:09 ◼   ► currently starts at 32.

01:16:11 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, well then we'll say they start at 64.

01:16:14 ◼   ► So what we're saying is it might be 6,000 to start.

01:16:19 ◼   ► - Gigabytes of SSD storage.

01:16:21 ◼   ► That's what it starts at now.

01:16:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's not even gonna be, yeah.

01:16:24 ◼   ► So actually I think that shows you something, right?

01:16:26 ◼   ► Whereas the level of the content in the base model Mac Pro

01:16:29 ◼   ► is actually not great, which is why nobody,

01:16:32 ◼   ► I mean, people buy it,

01:16:33 ◼   ► but they don't expect you to buy it at that level.

01:16:36 ◼   ► They expect it. - It is absurd right now

01:16:38 ◼   ► how much of a better deal the Mac studio is.

01:16:40 ◼   ► The Mac Studio, when it's like,

01:16:43 ◼   ► if we bump it up to the 20 core one,

01:16:45 ◼   ► which we think would be the start,

01:16:47 ◼   ► you get 64 gigabytes of memory and one terabyte of storage.

01:16:52 ◼   ► - For five grand.

01:16:52 ◼   ► - For five grand.

01:16:54 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:16:55 ◼   ► Yeah, so more storage, more memory, it's faster.

01:16:59 ◼   ► It's five grand.

01:17:01 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm gonna say to answer the question,

01:17:04 ◼   ► I think maybe it will be 6,000.

01:17:06 ◼   ► - I think six too.

01:17:08 ◼   ► I think that they would just say like,

01:17:10 ◼   ► it's the same price.

01:17:10 ◼   ► I don't think they're gonna bring it any closer

01:17:14 ◼   ► to the Mac studio. - No.

01:17:15 ◼   ► - That doesn't make any sense

01:17:16 ◼   ► 'cause otherwise why put the Mac studio in there?

01:17:19 ◼   ► - But it's gonna be for a base model

01:17:20 ◼   ► that's gonna have disappointing base specs.

01:17:22 ◼   ► And so you're gonna say,

01:17:22 ◼   ► "Oh, but just for a thousand more."

01:17:24 ◼   ► But then you're gonna look at the Mac studio

01:17:25 ◼   ► and you're gonna look at the Mac Pro and you're like,

01:17:27 ◼   ► "Oh, but I could actually get more computer for less."

01:17:31 ◼   ► 'Cause I do think that the argument is gonna be

01:17:34 ◼   ► the Mac Pro is really for people who need the Mac Pro

01:17:37 ◼   ► and that the Mac Studio is gonna steal from it.

01:17:40 ◼   ► - You know what?

01:17:41 ◼   ► - What?

01:17:42 ◼   ► - Maybe the creation of the Mac Studio

01:17:45 ◼   ► means it is absolutely pointless to even bother

01:17:49 ◼   ► with that starting configuration of the Mac Pro anymore.

01:17:52 ◼   ► - I mean, for people who need whatever the Mac Pro

01:17:54 ◼   ► is gonna deliver in terms of expandability.

01:17:57 ◼   ► - But I could imagine them maybe even starting it

01:18:02 ◼   ► at seven or eight.

01:18:04 ◼   ► - Could be.

01:18:05 ◼   ► Well, you're doing the SNL algorithm now, right?

01:18:06 ◼   ► So what I'm saying is I think that 6,000 is your,

01:18:10 ◼   ► that's what the Mac Pro costs now price.

01:18:12 ◼   ► And the question is, are they gonna try to hold that,

01:18:14 ◼   ► but it'll be disappointing?

01:18:16 ◼   ► Or are they not gonna make a disappointing base config?

01:18:20 ◼   ► And instead they're gonna kick it up to 7,000,

01:18:23 ◼   ► which means that it's 8,000 or 10,000,

01:18:26 ◼   ► depending on how you wanna handle it.

01:18:27 ◼   ► But if I had to put a bet down in one price,

01:18:31 ◼   ► I would be, I would say 6,000 or 59.99,

01:18:35 ◼   ► 'cause that's the existing price.

01:18:37 ◼   ► If I were to set an over under though,

01:18:39 ◼   ► I would put it higher, right?

01:18:40 ◼   ► If I was setting an over under,

01:18:42 ◼   ► I would put it at 6999 maybe.

01:18:46 ◼   ► - I think I'm gonna say my number

01:18:50 ◼   ► would be starting at 6999.

01:18:52 ◼   ► Like that's what I think it could be.

01:18:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I'll go 5999, but it'll be expensive.

01:18:57 ◼   ► And like I said, I also wanna reinforce,

01:19:00 ◼   ► it'll be expensive and it'll be for a config

01:19:02 ◼   ► that you'll look at and go, "Oh, well, I don't want that."

01:19:05 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:19:06 ◼   ► So, yeah.

01:19:07 ◼   ► - I wonder if the Ultra has some kind of minimum amounts

01:19:14 ◼   ► of RAM and storage that it needs.

01:19:19 ◼   ► I wonder, I don't know.

01:19:20 ◼   ► - Well, it will because it's two M1s, right?

01:19:25 ◼   ► So it has to have the memory,

01:19:29 ◼   ► minimum memory of each of those, so times two.

01:19:32 ◼   ► But having fewer GPUs or fewer cores,

01:19:39 ◼   ► all of that is possible.

01:19:41 ◼   ► I also anticipate that it will be ultra only the Mac Pro.

01:19:46 ◼   ► So ultra or ultra times two, whatever that is.

01:19:49 ◼   ► - Ultra max.

01:19:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, mega ultra.

01:19:53 ◼   ► - Do you think if they do that,

01:19:59 ◼   ► they will give it a different name?

01:20:00 ◼   ► Like there will be another name

01:20:02 ◼   ► or do you think they will just be like it's

01:20:05 ◼   ► - I mean they're maniacs in terms of naming.

01:20:08 ◼   ► - Maybe it's the Mac Pro maniac, you know?

01:20:10 ◼   ► - I would recommend that they just call it two M1 ultras

01:20:15 ◼   ► but I guess it really depends on how it's built.

01:20:19 ◼   ► If it really is the four interconnected thing

01:20:22 ◼   ► that was rumored but seems to not be happening for the M1

01:20:26 ◼   ► then they could call that something else.

01:20:28 ◼   ► if they want a step above ultra just to be monsters.

01:20:32 ◼   ► - Like, I just wonder if it's even necessary,

01:20:35 ◼   ► like it's just the ultra, but here are the specs.

01:20:39 ◼   ► Like at a certain point, do you need to brand everything?

01:20:42 ◼   ► - Right, well, I mean, and even if you did,

01:20:45 ◼   ► you wouldn't need to brand it to say it's two M1 ultras

01:20:48 ◼   ► or M2 ultras or whatever it is.

01:20:50 ◼   ► You wouldn't need to necessarily say

01:20:52 ◼   ► it's the new M1 ultra max,

01:20:56 ◼   ► especially 'cause you're marketing to people

01:20:58 ◼   ► buying a very, very expensive computer.

01:21:00 ◼   ► Do you need marketing of that kind at that price point?

01:21:03 ◼   ► I don't think so.

01:21:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, considering it is likely that that chip

01:21:07 ◼   ► will probably only ever be in that computer,

01:21:10 ◼   ► I would expect.

01:21:13 ◼   ► I don't think it needs its own name.

01:21:18 ◼   ► Where the Ultra is going to find its way into other stuff,

01:21:21 ◼   ► I feel like.

01:21:22 ◼   ► It's not just gonna be in the Mac Studio,

01:21:23 ◼   ► it will be in the Mac Pro, it will be in an iMac one day,

01:21:26 ◼   ► could be in a MacBook Pro one day.

01:21:28 ◼   ► I can't imagine whatever that top of the line chip is

01:21:32 ◼   ► really finding its way into other stuff.

01:21:34 ◼   ► Maybe the iMac Pro, but I doubt it.

01:21:37 ◼   ► I don't think it's going to be necessary.

01:21:39 ◼   ► So yeah, so we'll see, we'll see.

01:21:42 ◼   ► We'll see maybe in four weeks, not in a month.

01:21:45 ◼   ► Four weeks, maybe we'll find out in four weeks.

01:21:49 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a question

01:21:50 ◼   ► for us to answer on the show,

01:21:51 ◼   ► just send out a tweet with the hashtag #AskUPGRADE

01:21:53 ◼   ► or use question mark #AskUPGRADE

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01:22:18 ◼   ► to our sponsors for this week's episode FitBud, Capital One and Bombas and of course thank you

01:22:23 ◼   ► you for listening. If you want to keep up with us in the meantime, you can find us online.

01:22:27 ◼   ► You can find Jason at SixColors.com and he is @JSNELL. Jason hosts many shows here on

01:22:33 ◼   ► Reel AFM and on The Incomparable. You can find me, I am @imike, I am YKE and I also

01:22:39 ◼   ► host many shows here at Reel AFM. You can go check one out and maybe add something new

01:22:44 ◼   ► to your podcast subscription list. We'll be back next week. Till then, say goodbye,

01:22:50 ◼   ► and snow. Goodbye everybody.

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