Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Ding!]

00:00:00 ◼   ► [music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 382, and today's show is brought to you by ZocDoc,

00:00:16 ◼   ► Membrful, and DoorDash.

00:00:18 ◼   ► My name is Myke Curley and I am joined by Jason Sonnell.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Hi, Jason.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hi, Myke.

00:00:22 ◼   ► How are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► I'm good, my friend.

00:00:24 ◼   ► I've got a lot of stuff to talk about today.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Oh, packed show today.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Packed show.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Recording from an undisclosed location. So please don't write in and wonder why I sound different. It's because I'm in a different place. That's all I

00:00:35 ◼   ► Have a hashtag snail talk question comes from Chris Chris wants to know what is your screensaver?

00:00:41 ◼   ► my screensaver is

00:00:45 ◼   ► Called Ariel and it is literally the aerial screensaver from the Apple TV

00:00:50 ◼   ► put on the Mac and we talked about this a while ago and I acted like it was

00:00:57 ◼   ► The bill or more, you know, and then people pointed out that you can't actually get that on the Mac

00:01:02 ◼   ► and so you have to go to aerial screensaver dot github.io and

00:01:05 ◼   ► there's a github project and it's a screen saver module for the Mac and then it loads all of the aerial

00:01:12 ◼   ► Imagery imagery that's on the Apple TV, you know, this is different the last time that we did speak about this

00:01:18 ◼   ► It was all just like just took to a github page and it was it but now they at least have like a download thing

00:01:25 ◼   ► Well, it's a GitHub hosted page, but it's like the project page and it's all pretty

00:01:32 ◼   ► and stuff now.

00:01:33 ◼   ► So it looks more like a normal piece of software and not just a GitHub project.

00:01:39 ◼   ► But yeah, that's what it is.

00:01:42 ◼   ► It's just taken that imagery and I don't really understand why it's not available on the Mac

00:01:47 ◼   ► via an Apple thing.

00:01:49 ◼   ► I did that ages ago and I'm probably still using an ancient version of it, but that's

00:01:54 ◼   ► what I have on my iMac.

00:01:55 ◼   ► So if I, it doesn't stay on for very long, but if I wander away from my iMac for a while

00:01:59 ◼   ► and then come back, there'll usually be some sort of a flyover happening.

00:02:03 ◼   ► Where does it get the videos from?

00:02:06 ◼   ► Apple, there is a, you can download these videos, there's a known URL that is the, I

00:02:13 ◼   ► believe there's like a JSON file or something that shows you, it's the stuff the Apple TV

00:02:18 ◼   ► downloads.

00:02:19 ◼   ► Because they do pull them down from the web, right?

00:02:21 ◼   ► So they are existing on the internet somewhere.

00:02:23 ◼   ► It's just weird to me that Apple didn't lock that away, you know?

00:02:27 ◼   ► But hey ho, it's great that they didn't.

00:02:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, it's a known URL, so they just load that

00:02:32 ◼   ► and it gives them a list of what's available

00:02:33 ◼   ► and then they pull from there.

00:02:35 ◼   ► - Think I'm gonna put this on my MacBook Pro, I think.

00:02:38 ◼   ► On my iMac, I use the Hello screensaver

00:02:43 ◼   ► in the matching color of my iMac.

00:02:45 ◼   ► I don't know if that one is available on non M1 iMacs.

00:02:51 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:02:52 ◼   ► It's the one that draws the word "hello"?

00:02:55 ◼   ► I think it's in Monterey.

00:02:57 ◼   ► Okay.

00:02:58 ◼   ► I think before Monterey it wasn't available.

00:03:01 ◼   ► I think that's right.

00:03:02 ◼   ► It's probably available now.

00:03:03 ◼   ► But at least on mine, it's in yellow.

00:03:05 ◼   ► This is the default one that it shipped with.

00:03:08 ◼   ► So I just like it.

00:03:10 ◼   ► I think it's fun.

00:03:11 ◼   ► And it reminds me of how much I love

00:03:13 ◼   ► my little yellow computer.

00:03:15 ◼   ► Thank you to Chris for that Seltor question.

00:03:17 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a question

00:03:19 ◼   ► for us to open an episode of Upgrade,

00:03:22 ◼   ► we will answer it. Just send out a tweet with the hashtag #snowtalk or use question mark

00:03:25 ◼   ► snow talk in the relay FM members discord. I have a couple of follow up things that we

00:03:30 ◼   ► can go through Jason. The first is that Qualcomm have divulged to their investors on an investor

00:03:36 ◼   ► call that they expect 80% of their modem chip supply to Apple to fall away in 2023. So that

00:03:44 ◼   ► will only be what they have now, what they're currently supplying. They're expecting to

00:03:48 ◼   ► just be supplying 20% of that in 2023 and onwards.

00:03:53 ◼   ► So I think it's clear that we can assume from this,

00:03:56 ◼   ► as you wrote about in "Six Colors,"

00:03:58 ◼   ► that we can expect that this is the time

00:04:00 ◼   ► when Apple will be making their own modems,

00:04:02 ◼   ► which was something that was expected as a refresher.

00:04:06 ◼   ► You may remember Apple were in court with Qualcomm

00:04:08 ◼   ► over a payment dispute for patents and stuff,

00:04:12 ◼   ► when they, at that time, in one fail swoop,

00:04:15 ◼   ► bought Intel's business, like their modem business,

00:04:19 ◼   ► and settled with Qualcomm.

00:04:21 ◼   ► And part of that settlement is that they would maintain

00:04:23 ◼   ► a relationship in the meantime,

00:04:25 ◼   ► probably whatever price Qualcomm wanted them to pay

00:04:27 ◼   ► but Apple didn't want to pay, and it will come to an end,

00:04:31 ◼   ► and it seems like it's gonna be coming to an end in 2023.

00:04:34 ◼   ► - And they have some agreement in there

00:04:35 ◼   ► about what patents or patent payments are owed and all that,

00:04:39 ◼   ► because just because Apple's not going to be,

00:04:41 ◼   ► in the end, a customer of Qualcomm directly,

00:04:44 ◼   ► they're probably going to still pay them for whatever patent licensing, although Apple's

00:04:50 ◼   ► got some patents too that were part of the Intel thing.

00:04:52 ◼   ► Like it's, I don't recall exactly the details and I'm not sure how much of that is public,

00:04:57 ◼   ► but I would imagine that there will be some amount of payments that Apple's still going

00:05:03 ◼   ► to have to make to Qualcomm because Qualcomm has these patents.

00:05:06 ◼   ► But in terms of buying the silicon, buying the radios from Qualcomm, I just enjoy that

00:05:15 ◼   ► this story came out in a Qualcomm event because Qualcomm doesn't care.

00:05:21 ◼   ► That was the thing that made me laugh about this story.

00:05:23 ◼   ► This story is not unexpected at all, but Qualcomm saying, "Oh yeah, Apple's..."

00:05:28 ◼   ► And they're telling people, they're warning about losing a customer, a big customer, saying,

00:05:31 ◼   ► yeah by fall of 23, 80 percent of their modem chip business or 20 percent of their modem

00:05:41 ◼   ► chip business will be Apple and the rest will be gone and the whole idea there is they don't

00:05:46 ◼   ► care to an Apple partner that wants to keep Apple's business is going to keep quiet, right?

00:05:54 ◼   ► That's the rule.

00:05:55 ◼   ► You know this.

00:05:57 ◼   ► is the rule of Apple is don't cross me. Secrecy is the word of the day. Well, Qualcomm doesn't

00:06:05 ◼   ► care. Qualcomm doesn't care. So Qualcomm is happy to go out and say, "Oh yeah, Apple's

00:06:10 ◼   ► going to be using their own chips in the new iPhones really by 2023." And they say they'll

00:06:18 ◼   ► still have some. I imagine that is their estimate about how many they're going to be supplying

00:06:23 ◼   ► for older products that are not yet discontinued, a brand new legacy node.

00:06:29 ◼   ► So here's our time frame for Apple doing 5G.

00:06:32 ◼   ► We may see, or 5G using their own silicon, we may see it in products before this.

00:06:37 ◼   ► It's a little unclear too, they're talking about Qualcomm's fiscal year, so the question

00:06:40 ◼   ► of will it be next fall that they start this process or will it really not be until 23?

00:06:45 ◼   ► Will it premiere in maybe a laptop or maybe an iPad before it goes in the iPhone?

00:06:50 ◼   ► sort of up to Apple to decide how it wants to do it. Honestly, I can sort of see it make

00:06:57 ◼   ► sense that it might debut in a non-iPhone product just to tie it out.

00:07:01 ◼   ► I really hope they don't debut their first ever modem chip in their iPhone.

00:07:08 ◼   ► In an iPhone? In a big high-volume iPhone?

00:07:10 ◼   ► This is something that's new for Apple, right? Like it will be new. They might have done

00:07:14 ◼   ► a bunch of testing but it is gonna be new and this like the modem that is a

00:07:19 ◼   ► cannot be an error there is no room for error in the modem of an iPhone right

00:07:25 ◼   ► remember when there was the there were Intel and Qualcomm chips and one of them

00:07:30 ◼   ► was like faster than the other one and every people were like trying to figure

00:07:32 ◼   ► out if they could shop for the iPhones that had the faster chips and

00:07:36 ◼   ► then all it's no good so yeah I would not I mean who knows Apple could do

00:07:43 ◼   ► whatever it wants but I wouldn't be shocked if it's in some lower volume product and literally

00:07:47 ◼   ► everything that's on iPhone is a lower volume product for Apple that it show up in an iPad

00:07:52 ◼   ► or something like that before beforehand. But Qualcomm is basically like yeah this is

00:07:56 ◼   ► going to happen and this is the only time you get kind of this long-range thing is when

00:08:00 ◼   ► a supplier who is not going to be a supplier anymore is happy to say yep Apple's taking

00:08:05 ◼   ► their business elsewhere or in this case taking their ball and going home with it because

00:08:11 ◼   ► going to build these things themselves or we assume maybe integrate them onto the chips,

00:08:17 ◼   ► although that's not necessarily the case.

00:08:20 ◼   ► So Apple's going to build them, it's going to happen, and Qualcomm says that by fall

00:08:24 ◼   ► of '23 it will be in full swing.

00:08:27 ◼   ► So that gives us some extra data about what Apple is doing building its own modems.

00:08:34 ◼   ► Thanks, Qualcomm.

00:08:35 ◼   ► Yeah, thanks a lot.

00:08:37 ◼   ► It's great to have someone who just doesn't care and Qualcomm, which is funny because

00:08:43 ◼   ► there's that interview with the CEO of Intel who it was almost the reverse of that where

00:08:51 ◼   ► Apple has gotten away from Intel and the CEO of Intel is like, "Well, we just got to work

00:08:56 ◼   ► to get their business back."

00:08:57 ◼   ► And like, "Really?

00:08:59 ◼   ► Yeah, our chips, if we make better chips, they'll come back to us."

00:09:03 ◼   ► It's like, "I don't think that's ever going to happen."

00:09:06 ◼   ► And then he sort of hedged and like, or, you know, maybe, you know, if we can make their

00:09:10 ◼   ► chips for them, right?

00:09:11 ◼   ► And it's like, oh, okay, well that is more possible as a scenario that if you catch up

00:09:17 ◼   ► to TSMC at fabrication that you could compete with them for Apple's business.

00:09:22 ◼   ► But it was just this really kind of cockeyed, optimistic, unrealistic kind of like, we're

00:09:27 ◼   ► going to compete for their business.

00:09:28 ◼   ► And Qualcomm's like, yeah, they're gone.

00:09:30 ◼   ► Bye.

00:09:31 ◼   ► I feel like that's surely something that they said to make a positive message to shareholders.

00:09:38 ◼   ► They know that surely there's nothing they can do.

00:09:42 ◼   ► I don't think Apple necessarily cares about having the fastest chips on the market.

00:09:47 ◼   ► They just so happen to have them.

00:09:50 ◼   ► It could become having lived through the PowerPC era, it can become a burden for your platform

00:09:56 ◼   ► but it would take a while and Apple would still have their control.

00:09:59 ◼   ► There's no sign of that really happening.

00:10:01 ◼   ► Qualcomm did make some, speaking of Qualcomm, make some statements about their, they've

00:10:05 ◼   ► got a next generation processor coming from the company that they bought that was founded

00:10:09 ◼   ► by people who used to work at Apple doing chip design and that that is targeted at a

00:10:14 ◼   ► PC level kind of performance thing.

00:10:16 ◼   ► Interesting, but like, let's, and they may be able to match or beat Apple or it may change

00:10:23 ◼   ► the game in some way.

00:10:24 ◼   ► But thus far Apple's already been more than a year ahead of Qualcomm's chips on smartphones

00:10:30 ◼   ► in terms of performance and we've seen where Apple's chips on the Mac are compared to Intel.

00:10:35 ◼   ► So right now Apple's just got a big lead and it may change but I think the Intel CEO first

00:10:44 ◼   ► off I think maybe learned his lesson when about that whole lifestyle company from Cupertino

00:10:50 ◼   ► joke that he made but also I think that he's sending a message that Intel is gonna try,

00:10:56 ◼   ► right? Like Intel is gonna keep working at it and they're gonna be able to compete with

00:11:02 ◼   ► Apple and even if Apple doesn't switch like we're gonna be competitive which I'm not sure

00:11:06 ◼   ► anybody believes right now but it take the long view you know give them they're gonna

00:11:11 ◼   ► try good for them and then more realistically Intel which famously wouldn't fab chips for

00:11:16 ◼   ► anybody else that weren't Intel's own chips. I think that is a major area of growth for

00:11:23 ◼   ► Intel and that Intel would love to be able to take chip manufacturing business away from

00:11:30 ◼   ► TSMC in terms of Apple. That's an area where Intel could really grow. Intel is talking

00:11:36 ◼   ► like a company that wants to do business with Apple in the future and Qualcomm is not.

00:11:41 ◼   ► South Korean lawmakers are unhappy with Apple's efforts to meet their ruling over third-party

00:11:47 ◼   ► payments.

00:11:59 ◼   ► Yeo Seung-Le, who is one of the lawmakers in South Korea, has a great quote from them.

00:12:04 ◼   ► "Frankly, we are not satisfied.

00:12:05 ◼   ► Apple's claims that it's already complying is nonsensical.

00:12:09 ◼   ► "Excessive fees take away developers' chances for innovation. Parliament is to be

00:12:13 ◼   ► closely informed as the government's draft detailed regulations to make sure there is

00:12:16 ◼   ► accountability." This is coming into effect pretty soon next year. And it is kind of hilarious,

00:12:23 ◼   ► really, when you look at what we were talking about with what Google did to comply. And

00:12:27 ◼   ► Apple has so far said, "They are already complying." And I don't understand. I don't

00:12:35 ◼   ► get it? I don't know what they're particularly hinging this on, but that's kind of where

00:12:40 ◼   ► they are and understandably South Korea's pretty peeved about it.

00:12:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like a weird game of chicken where it was like, "Alright, we passed a

00:12:50 ◼   ► new law, you gotta do it." We already did it.

00:12:52 ◼   ► They're gaslighting.

00:12:53 ◼   ► What?

00:12:54 ◼   ► Which is so strange as a thing to do. I don't really know what the plan is here, but this

00:13:00 ◼   ► is where they are right now.

00:13:02 ◼   ► Amazing. Well, I think our notes from last week can be replayed here. Basically, if Apple

00:13:10 ◼   ► is forced to comply with like alternative payment routes, we know what they're going

00:13:14 ◼   ► to do. They're going to do what Google did, which is they're going to charge a fee regardless

00:13:20 ◼   ► of whether you use their service or not for payment and it's not going to save anybody

00:13:23 ◼   ► any money and so nobody's going to do it. That's what's going to happen. So, they're

00:13:28 ◼   ► They're going to have to try something else.

00:13:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I think if they are forced to do alternative payment methods, I think that's absolutely

00:13:35 ◼   ► what they're going to do.

00:13:36 ◼   ► Because they could use the developer account as a proxy and charge people for their annual

00:13:45 ◼   ► developer thing, but I feel like the simplest thing to do is just say, "We've changed the

00:13:51 ◼   ► terms of service of your Apple developer agreement, and if you use an alternative payment mechanism

00:13:55 ◼   ► in a country where that is available, then you owe us this percentage as part of your

00:14:00 ◼   ► developer agreement.

00:14:01 ◼   ► Done.

00:14:02 ◼   ► Right?

00:14:03 ◼   ► And, uh, and that may know what that effect will be, which is everybody will look at the

00:14:09 ◼   ► cost of implementing an alternative payment mechanism and realize it's as expensive or

00:14:14 ◼   ► more expensive or only very slightly less expensive than using apples.

00:14:18 ◼   ► And most people will just give up and not do it.

00:14:21 ◼   ► And then there'll be another round of legislation that'll say you can't charge more than this

00:14:27 ◼   ► for your fee.

00:14:29 ◼   ► And that'll be argued and, you know, but that would be the next round.

00:14:33 ◼   ► And you have a orange HomePod mini.

00:14:37 ◼   ► I do.

00:14:38 ◼   ► I wrote about this on Six Colors last week.

00:14:39 ◼   ► It's been in my office for a little while.

00:14:43 ◼   ► Apple sent me an orange HomePod mini.

00:14:45 ◼   ► I mean, HomePod mini is not new.

00:14:46 ◼   ► They never sent me a HomePod mini to review, by the way.

00:14:49 ◼   ► But they sent me an orange HomePod Mini to look at the color, right?

00:14:54 ◼   ► Which is interesting.

00:14:55 ◼   ► I appreciate it because I had, I bought a HomePod Mini.

00:14:58 ◼   ► I have a space gray HomePod Mini.

00:15:00 ◼   ► And so I was able to do a HomePod Mini stereo pair for the first time.

00:15:05 ◼   ► I have two HomePods and in a stereo pair.

00:15:10 ◼   ► So I know about that.

00:15:12 ◼   ► But I hadn't done it with the HomePod Mini before.

00:15:14 ◼   ► And so I hadn't really been able to hear how it performs as a stereo pair.

00:15:18 ◼   ► And so that was fun.

00:15:21 ◼   ► It sounds pretty good.

00:15:22 ◼   ► I tried it out in place.

00:15:24 ◼   ► So I have a Sonos One pair that I used to replace my iPod HiFi, which was wired into

00:15:28 ◼   ► my iMac, because I wanted to get the iPod HiFi off the desk, and it gets a little more

00:15:34 ◼   ► stereo separation to have the speakers on opposite sides of my office instead of just

00:15:39 ◼   ► kind of off to the left of my iMac.

00:15:42 ◼   ► And the Sonos's sounded good, but I have had problems.

00:15:45 ◼   ► I've been bedeviled with airplay problems, where sometimes it loses the connection, sometimes

00:15:54 ◼   ► it can't see the speakers briefly, sometimes when you press play, one starts playing and

00:16:00 ◼   ► then the other one catches up after a second or two, so every song starts off in the left

00:16:06 ◼   ► and then becomes stereo.

00:16:08 ◼   ► I've had it where you pause it and walk away for a while and you come back and you press

00:16:13 ◼   ► play and it won't play and it until you replay the song it just won't play.

00:16:21 ◼   ► Lots of frustration there and I've been unclear on whether that it was Sonos's fault or whether

00:16:26 ◼   ► that was Airplay's fault.

00:16:28 ◼   ► And I can report now that I've used the HomePod minis that it's Airplay's fault.

00:16:32 ◼   ► The HomePod minis are probably, I forget how I phrased in the article, basically they're

00:16:37 ◼   ► more stable a little bit maybe than the Sonos's but not a lot and it's still not great.

00:16:43 ◼   ► Is this an issue you are finding on the Mac or on all devices?

00:16:47 ◼   ► On the Mac, it is the worst.

00:16:50 ◼   ► There are issues, and I think last week ATP talked about this, Marco talked about it a

00:16:54 ◼   ► little bit, and I hadn't listened when I wrote my piece, and it was sort of like we were

00:16:58 ◼   ► thinking along the same track at the same time.

00:17:00 ◼   ► It's pretty funny.

00:17:02 ◼   ► There are AirPlay issues.

00:17:04 ◼   ► AirPlay has, and it has gotten worse.

00:17:06 ◼   ► I noticed this with my regular HomePods too, where, and I don't know if it's a new version

00:17:12 ◼   ► of Airplay or iOS or whatever, but I've noticed on my other home pods, my big home pods, that

00:17:17 ◼   ► sometimes it just takes the playback away from me, so I'm playing it from my phone,

00:17:23 ◼   ► and then I go to my phone to pause it or go to the next track and my phone is no longer

00:17:27 ◼   ► playing.

00:17:28 ◼   ► It's no longer connected to the home pod.

00:17:31 ◼   ► So you know, because they get in this weird synergy where like you're on your phone, but

00:17:37 ◼   ► the now playing is the HomePod and you can pause it and go next and change the

00:17:41 ◼   ► volume. It's very nice when you initiate that from the phone that you get to

00:17:45 ◼   ► control it. But I found that increasingly the HomePod basically disconnects from

00:17:50 ◼   ► my phone and now I have to either go try to find the HomePod and reconnect to it

00:17:54 ◼   ► which is a challenge and doesn't always work. A lot of times I'll press

00:17:59 ◼   ► what I think is pause but it's actually play and what happens is it's gonna play

00:18:03 ◼   ► that same thing that I'm playing on the HomePod on my iPhone at the point where that disconnected so I often get like

00:18:09 ◼   ► Two versions of the same song shifted off by 30 seconds one's playing out of my phone and the other still playing on the HomePod

00:18:16 ◼   ► very weird

00:18:18 ◼   ► Home play or very weird airplay stuff going on

00:18:21 ◼   ► I

00:18:23 ◼   ► will say though that

00:18:25 ◼   ► Clearly it is more reliable to play things on the HomePods mini or big or the Sonos's

00:18:33 ◼   ► honestly, from an iOS device.

00:18:35 ◼   ► On the Mac, it's really weird.

00:18:38 ◼   ► And there is this like system output setting for the Mac

00:18:43 ◼   ► that lets you use your HomePods or any other AirPlay device

00:18:47 ◼   ► theoretically as a system output.

00:18:49 ◼   ► But I don't-- and first off, that's not reliable either.

00:18:52 ◼   ► But I also don't want that.

00:18:54 ◼   ► Because that means that every alert, anything else that

00:18:57 ◼   ► is playing out of the Mac is two second

00:19:00 ◼   ► delayed playback via AirPlay.

00:19:03 ◼   ► And I don't want that.

00:19:04 ◼   ► I want that stuff to come through my iMac speaker and be instantaneous.

00:19:08 ◼   ► So it's a weird situation.

00:19:11 ◼   ► I like the sound of the HomePod Minis.

00:19:13 ◼   ► They don't sound quite as good as the Sonos', but the Sonos' cost twice as much.

00:19:19 ◼   ► And honestly, for my use, where they're sitting on basically the edges of my desk, the HomePod

00:19:24 ◼   ► Mini would be good enough.

00:19:26 ◼   ► It can't get as loud as the Sonos', but the loudest of the HomePod Mini is good enough,

00:19:31 ◼   ► again, good enough for my use sitting on my desk in my office.

00:19:34 ◼   ► I've had a bunch of people write in and say, "Well, what you really need is a USB amp and

00:19:38 ◼   ► wired speakers, wired bookshelf speakers."

00:19:40 ◼   ► It's like, that's not what I want.

00:19:43 ◼   ► Wired would be better, but I don't want wires, and I don't want big speakers sitting on my

00:19:48 ◼   ► desk.

00:19:49 ◼   ► So, I'm trying to find some other method here, not entirely successfully.

00:19:56 ◼   ► enough that I haven't bagged it and got back to the iPod Hi-Fi, but it's not as good as

00:20:00 ◼   ► I wish that it was. And I think the bottom line is the software is a little messed up

00:20:06 ◼   ► right now. And the fact that the Mac is not a first-class citizen of AirPlay, and even

00:20:12 ◼   ► on the number one platform, iOS, AirPlay is kind of sketchy right now. We're in a weird

00:20:19 ◼   ► place. I know you've complained about HomePod issues with yours, too. So you've seen it,

00:20:25 ◼   ► that, and I agree with Marco, that I feel like the HomePod, the big HomePods were more

00:20:31 ◼   ► stable. There was a really nice era of stability that I had with them last year, but that now

00:20:39 ◼   ► things are really weird.

00:20:41 ◼   ► It might have been completely rock solid since…

00:20:44 ◼   ► Since you did the tvOS update?

00:20:45 ◼   ► Yes.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Yeah, but you've got them in that, you've got them locked as tvOS speakers, right?

00:20:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I can play music on them whenever I want.

00:20:53 ◼   ► Alright.

00:20:54 ◼   ► to them, you know, like as you normally…

00:20:56 ◼   ► Oh yeah, well, and talking to them is a different thing, right? Because then it's not airplay,

00:21:00 ◼   ► then it's them playing for themselves and that would be the other argument is I could

00:21:05 ◼   ► just forgo controlling my music on my Mac at all and just use voice, but I don't want

00:21:13 ◼   ► to, like, I don't want to do that.

00:21:15 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a shame because you can still, on iOS, you can still control them even if

00:21:21 ◼   ► they're playing on their own but you can't do it on the Mac.

00:21:25 ◼   ► Right, and I will also say the Sonos thing like there's a Sonos app on the Mac.

00:21:30 ◼   ► I could go all in on controlling my and it's got Apple Music integration so I could go

00:21:34 ◼   ► all in on controlling my stuff on the Mac using the Sonos app.

00:21:37 ◼   ► The Sonos app is a weird app too.

00:21:39 ◼   ► I don't really want to use it.

00:21:41 ◼   ► I don't like its interface.

00:21:42 ◼   ► It's kind of unpleasant.

00:21:43 ◼   ► It is more stable with the Sonos speakers than using AirPlay.

00:21:47 ◼   ► There's no doubt about it.

00:21:48 ◼   ► But again, I don't wanna, right?

00:21:51 ◼   ► I wanna use the music app on my Mac.

00:21:53 ◼   ► - Like it feels like what the Mac music app needs

00:21:56 ◼   ► is something like the Spotify Connect thing,

00:22:00 ◼   ► where Spotify Connect, you can just tell

00:22:03 ◼   ► any connected device, play whatever I'm asking you to do,

00:22:08 ◼   ► but it's not streaming it to it.

00:22:10 ◼   ► It's pulling it from the web.

00:22:12 ◼   ► - If I were giving advice to somebody at Apple

00:22:14 ◼   ► who's involved with this stuff,

00:22:15 ◼   ► which I guess technically I am,

00:22:17 ◼   ► because I am a person on a podcast,

00:22:19 ◼   ► but probably not with a direct line.

00:22:22 ◼   ► Anyway, my advice would be a version of what you just said,

00:22:25 ◼   ► which is you need an airplane mode

00:22:29 ◼   ► in the music app on the Mac that just says,

00:22:33 ◼   ► use this as my speakers, and that is solid.

00:22:38 ◼   ► The challenge is you can go to the airplane icon

00:22:42 ◼   ► and choose an airplane speaker and say, okay, here we go.

00:22:47 ◼   ► And it is persistent across quits unless it goes through its thing where it

00:22:51 ◼   ► decides that it can't, you press play and it goes, I can't find it.

00:22:54 ◼   ► And then you press play again and it goes, now I can find it. Yeah. Which is,

00:22:58 ◼   ► you know, great. Um, so that if,

00:23:03 ◼   ► if you get in a mode where I can say, look, these are my speakers,

00:23:05 ◼   ► always play to them. And now I'm playing to them. I would be happy.

00:23:10 ◼   ► The problem is that that very basic scenario

00:23:16 ◼   ► doesn't work. It just doesn't work reliably. It is really frustrating to me as somebody

00:23:23 ◼   ► who listens to music on my Mac all the time and wants to embrace airplay because I really

00:23:28 ◼   ► like the fact that I can put speakers on the far walls of my office. I can get really nice

00:23:34 ◼   ► stereo separation. It's really quite pleasant. And in fact, getting speakers off my desk

00:23:39 ◼   ► also means my desk doesn't vibrate when something is vibrating in the music, right? I like it.

00:23:43 ◼   ► I can play things louder without it bugging me.

00:23:48 ◼   ► But I can't.

00:23:49 ◼   ► I mean, I'm doing it, but I'm suffering and I get frustrated because multiple times a

00:23:54 ◼   ► day I have to click on the little AirPlay thing and like go back to my...

00:23:58 ◼   ► It's like it's playing, but I can't hear anything.

00:24:00 ◼   ► And then I click on iMac speakers and then it starts to play, even though it said it

00:24:05 ◼   ► was playing before, but it's playing nothing to no one.

00:24:09 ◼   ► And then I have to click back and maybe it will go...

00:24:12 ◼   ► Sometimes I also get in a position where it's playing to multiple speakers.

00:24:15 ◼   ► I've had several hilarious moments where the Sonos's and the HomePod Mini's are all playing,

00:24:20 ◼   ► which I guess is a thing you could do.

00:24:22 ◼   ► You could get that quadraphonic sound of four little speakers in two stereo pairs playing

00:24:27 ◼   ► at once.

00:24:28 ◼   ► But it's not what I want.

00:24:29 ◼   ► It's not what I'm trying to do.

00:24:30 ◼   ► It's just I end up there because the AirPlay experience is so frustrating.

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00:26:13 ◼   ► Apple have announced to employees that they are once again pushing back their

00:26:17 ◼   ► return to the office plan and they are now expecting this to be February at the

00:26:22 ◼   ► earliest. They had mentioned before I think January was the plan with a one

00:26:26 ◼   ► month notice so now they're saying February and it will be the notice is now

00:26:30 ◼   ► but could be February could be later but won't be expected to be any earlier.

00:26:36 ◼   ► For month 1, employees will be expected to be back in the office 2 days a week.

00:26:44 ◼   ► From March it will be Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for the majority of employees.

00:26:50 ◼   ► Apple is going to increase remote work allowance from 2 weeks to 4 weeks a year.

00:27:04 ◼   ► Some employees will have different requirements if their work needs more in person time.

00:27:07 ◼   ► There will be some members of different teams that will have to be in every single day.

00:27:11 ◼   ► Hardware engineering.

00:27:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:13 ◼   ► And design, I'm sure, is another one.

00:27:15 ◼   ► Probably, yeah.

00:27:16 ◼   ► All of that kind of stuff.

00:27:17 ◼   ► Apple has not yet, on top of this, mandated vaccinations that are in place.

00:27:22 ◼   ► A bunch of tech companies have done this.

00:27:24 ◼   ► Apple has not yet done this.

00:27:26 ◼   ► It's unknown if they will require this when people are expected to be back in the office.

00:27:32 ◼   ► Frankly, I am a bit surprised about that,

00:27:35 ◼   ► that this hasn't become a thing that they've mentioned

00:27:38 ◼   ► or have not already required.

00:27:41 ◼   ► Yeah, so this is where they are.

00:27:42 ◼   ► This is a bit better, right?

00:27:44 ◼   ► They've doubled their remote work allowance

00:27:48 ◼   ► from two to four weeks.

00:27:50 ◼   ► It's better than two weeks.

00:27:51 ◼   ► It's, I would understand many people would say,

00:27:54 ◼   ► still not enough.

00:27:54 ◼   ► There'll be a lot of people now, as we said before,

00:27:57 ◼   ► that have spent this last two years working from home

00:28:00 ◼   ► have realized that they don't need to be in the office for their job and would like the

00:28:03 ◼   ► ability to not be in the office for their job, but that seems to not be a thing that

00:28:08 ◼   ► Apple's doing. I will say I'm at least happy. One of the things we were saying is we want

00:28:12 ◼   ► them to listen to their employees. They have shown that they've listened. They've come

00:28:16 ◼   ► up with something that maybe still isn't good enough, but they at least I think have shown

00:28:20 ◼   ► that they understand that people thought that the two weeks wasn't enough. We'll see. What

00:28:26 ◼   ► is your read on this?

00:28:27 ◼   ► Well, I'll throw in too in terms of listening to the employees something that that is a development that I think

00:28:32 ◼   ► So we should for who's to be at the verge

00:28:34 ◼   ► but now is it NBC News reported that they had a memo that basically said you can talk about your

00:28:39 ◼   ► You can talk about your compensation and your feelings about Apple and we can't tell you not to and that can be public and it

00:28:45 ◼   ► Was an interesting sort of moment of Apple saying we can't we can't

00:28:49 ◼   ► We can't legally stop you

00:28:52 ◼   ► But I think that that's an interesting

00:28:57 ◼   ► interesting little thing. I hope I'm characterizing that right. But the idea there is that there's,

00:29:01 ◼   ► there's a little more understanding of, uh, what's that Zoe's thing? I don't know. I'm not finding

00:29:08 ◼   ► the, uh, I'm not finding the link now. Hmm. Well, it's live podcast updating. So that's,

00:29:14 ◼   ► that's what happens. Anyway, my understanding is that, um, that they're, they acknowledged

00:29:20 ◼   ► that discussion of employee issues is allowed. And, and that's interesting. I mean,

00:29:27 ◼   ► whether that makes any difference remains to be seen.

00:29:29 ◼   ► But I thought that was like an interesting moment too,

00:29:32 ◼   ► where Apple is doing this bend, but not break strategy,

00:29:35 ◼   ► right, which is like, yeah, we'll listen,

00:29:37 ◼   ► but you're still gonna do what we say, but we'll listen,

00:29:39 ◼   ► which I mean, that's a management choice.

00:29:41 ◼   ► I think they're showing some flexibility here.

00:29:45 ◼   ► Obviously you and I have been very strong,

00:29:50 ◼   ► I guess, advocates for the idea

00:29:52 ◼   ► that not all work needs to be in person.

00:29:54 ◼   ► and that Apple is perhaps gonna lose good people

00:29:59 ◼   ► because they're so limited

00:30:02 ◼   ► and they've always been this way

00:30:04 ◼   ► where there are a lot of parts of Apple

00:30:06 ◼   ► where they're like, no, no, you have to be in a desk

00:30:10 ◼   ► at a computer in Cupertino.

00:30:12 ◼   ► And that's where this job is because of reasons,

00:30:16 ◼   ► because of history, because of collaboration,

00:30:17 ◼   ► because of whatever.

00:30:19 ◼   ► And that after two years,

00:30:21 ◼   ► you would think that certain parts of that business

00:30:23 ◼   ► realize they actually get along just fine and they don't need to be in person.

00:30:27 ◼   ► And what happens when people don't need to be in person is it's not just that people

00:30:30 ◼   ► with Silicon Valley jobs can move out of Silicon Valley where the commutes are terrible and

00:30:33 ◼   ► the cost of living is awful.

00:30:34 ◼   ► It also means that Apple can hire really talented people who will never move to California or

00:30:40 ◼   ► wherever their offices are that they're hiring for.

00:30:42 ◼   ► They have a bigger base.

00:30:44 ◼   ► So I think Apple is actually stronger when it comes to jobs that don't need to be in

00:30:48 ◼   ► person.

00:30:49 ◼   ► That's the argument, right?

00:30:51 ◼   ► What job needs to be in person?

00:30:53 ◼   ► But I would argue that there are lots of jobs, and I know this from personal experience,

00:30:57 ◼   ► talking to people, there are lots of jobs at Apple that are sitting at a desk looking

00:31:00 ◼   ► at a computer and collaborating using a Slack channel or something that don't need to be

00:31:08 ◼   ► in Cupertino where it's incredibly expensive to live and yet those jobs are there because

00:31:16 ◼   ► of those reasons.

00:31:17 ◼   ► So I think by doing it this way and saying you can work from home a little bit, they're

00:31:23 ◼   ► addressing some of the kind of work-life balance issues of like we don't need to be in the

00:31:27 ◼   ► office every day and we know you have a long commute and we know that you've got kids at

00:31:32 ◼   ► home and things like that.

00:31:33 ◼   ► And I think in isolation as a humane policy, I think it's good.

00:31:39 ◼   ► My problem with it is there's another aspect here which is jobs that should probably not

00:31:47 ◼   ► need physical offices and the proof is the pandemic that they have happened fine without.

00:31:54 ◼   ► Now again, I'm not saying all of them have, but there are some certainly that could be remote

00:31:59 ◼   ► forever. So I think, I mean, and again, they don't want to make a blanket policy. So it may be that

00:32:06 ◼   ► very slowly in the background, those groups that don't need to be in person are made remote groups,

00:32:14 ◼   ► but it's not a blanket policy and it just sort of happens.

00:32:17 ◼   ► I do think that by making this policy the way that they have, the risk is that they're

00:32:24 ◼   ► going to turn people off, but I think the reality is going to be that person by person,

00:32:30 ◼   ► whether it's retaining an existing employee or it's a new hire, Apple's policies here

00:32:37 ◼   ► will still change.

00:32:39 ◼   ► they will be eroded person by person, group by group, star by star, as they realize that

00:32:47 ◼   ► if they want this person, they're going to not be able to hire them and make them move

00:32:52 ◼   ► to Cupertino. But they really want them. And well, you know, we saw in the pandemic, this

00:32:58 ◼   ► person doesn't actually need to be here. And that's, or this person, we really want to

00:33:02 ◼   ► retain this person, but they don't want to live in the Bay Area anymore. And their job

00:33:05 ◼   ► doesn't really need to be here. So I mean, that happened. I had people at Macworld move

00:33:10 ◼   ► and we kept paying them and they kept doing their job and it was great, right? That's

00:33:17 ◼   ► not quite, I mean, the truth is that barring some real conversion on the part of Apple

00:33:23 ◼   ► Supper Management, that's how the change happens. And I think it is going to happen. I think

00:33:27 ◼   ► that the pandemic has fundamentally changed how a lot of people view these kinds of jobs.

00:33:31 ◼   ► I think that for companies like Apple to retain talent, they're going to have to make exceptions.

00:33:37 ◼   ► They'll be forced to be flexible.

00:33:39 ◼   ► And eventually the exceptions will become the rule, which is, "Oh, you'll turn around

00:33:44 ◼   ► in five years and realize that that group that used to have an office at Infinite Loop

00:33:52 ◼   ► is remote now." And it'll just happen like that. But I think it will happen regardless

00:33:59 ◼   ► because otherwise they're going to lose too much talent and fail to acquire new talent

00:34:04 ◼   ► and that's just the truth of it.

00:34:06 ◼   ► So you were remembering correctly it was the second Zoetia first story at NBC News where

00:34:12 ◼   ► Apple have sent out another memo saying our policies do not restrict employees from speaking

00:34:18 ◼   ► freely about their wages, hours or working conditions. We encourage any employee of concerns

00:34:23 ◼   ► to raise them in the way they feel most comfortable internally or externally including through

00:34:27 ◼   ► their manager, any Apple manager, people support, people business partner, or business conduct.

00:34:32 ◼   ► And we also have a link to a Bloomberg article that says that Cher Scarlett, who was one

00:34:36 ◼   ► of the people who was involved in this movement, is leaving Apple but reached a settlement

00:34:41 ◼   ► with them, and that regarding a complaint she made with the National Labor Relations

00:34:46 ◼   ► Board. So these things are probably connected, right? Which is Apple reacted in a very aggressive

00:34:52 ◼   ► way toward employee criticism and discussion about Apple and then was reminded that there

00:34:57 ◼   ► are certain things that people are allowed to do and sent out a memo saying, "Okay,

00:35:03 ◼   ► just to clarify, probably a condition of the settlement." You have rights.

00:35:07 ◼   ► I mean, I cannot for a moment assume that all of Apple forgot this existed, right? Like

00:35:14 ◼   ► there are legal people that knew about this, right? Or like people in some people in HR

00:35:18 ◼   ► it knew about this, but it may have been a selection of overzealous managers who were

00:35:22 ◼   ► forcing people not to talk, right?

00:35:25 ◼   ► Or not aware. I think that happens a lot in business. There are the people who are aware

00:35:30 ◼   ► of employment law and the rights of the employees, and then there are managers who think that

00:35:34 ◼   ► they own their employees.

00:35:35 ◼   ► Then there are the managers, which by and large are not those people, right? Because

00:35:38 ◼   ► that's not what they do, right? So that can be the issue. There's something I wanted to

00:35:42 ◼   ► bring up, which I found kind of weird. The fact that they're going to make everyone be

00:35:46 ◼   ► in the office on the same days. It's like Wednesday and Friday Apple Park will be a

00:35:50 ◼   ► ghost town and I don't understand the thinking behind that. Like one of the reasons you do

00:35:56 ◼   ► this kind of thing is that you spread out your employees a bit.

00:36:01 ◼   ► Yeah the idea that you do have meetings so you want to have common meeting days I get

00:36:06 ◼   ► that, but I wonder if within different groups you could say well we're not going to do Monday,

00:36:09 ◼   ► Tuesday, Thursday, we're going to do Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and you know and other people

00:36:15 ◼   ► People are like, "We love Wednesdays. We're going to do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday," or

00:36:19 ◼   ► whatever. Although Apple has structured this in a way that you can't take a long weekend.

00:36:24 ◼   ► Again, they're trying to structure this in a certain way. But I agree, it is a little

00:36:28 ◼   ► bit weird. But I think in practice, again, they are making a blanket policy here, but

00:36:33 ◼   ► it's an enormous company and it would not surprise me if that within individual groups,

00:36:39 ◼   ► there's more variation, but that's not the policy. But you're right. If the goal here

00:36:44 ◼   ► is to spread out your employees so there's a little less employee density during an ongoing

00:36:48 ◼   ► pandemic, that this doesn't do that. But alright, I guess you can clean the pool on Wednesday.

00:36:57 ◼   ► Apple also announced the Self Service Repair Program last week, which is a program that

00:37:04 ◼   ► Apple will be selling to individuals, parts and tools so they can make their own repairs

00:37:10 ◼   ► on their devices, starting with iPhone 12 and 13 lines, and later on M1 MacBooks.

00:37:18 ◼   ► This will begin in early 2022 in the US, rolling out into different territories and potentially

00:37:24 ◼   ► different products throughout the year.

00:37:27 ◼   ► What do you think about this?

00:37:29 ◼   ► I think I actually recycled that Princess Bride quote from last week about getting used

00:37:35 ◼   ► to disappointment when I talked to Micah about this on TechNews Weekly last week because

00:37:42 ◼   ► I think that we get this news about Apple changing and we're like, "Ah, Apple changed.

00:37:49 ◼   ► It's going to be so much different."

00:37:50 ◼   ► And it's always, it's a little bit like my thing about how you get excited about a product

00:37:53 ◼   ► and then you got to add money to how much it's going to cost because it's always going

00:37:57 ◼   ► to disappoint you.

00:37:58 ◼   ► It's a little like that which is like it's never going to be quite as liberal a policy

00:38:01 ◼   ► as you would like it to be.

00:38:02 ◼   ► It's going to be a little narrower and it's not going to change the world as much as you

00:38:06 ◼   ► want it to be, but it's a positive step.

00:38:09 ◼   ► Apple has been taking these positive steps to get its manuals and its parts in the hands

00:38:13 ◼   ► of independent service people, independent service companies, and now individuals on

00:38:18 ◼   ► top of that.

00:38:20 ◼   ► Is it going to be something that everybody's going to want to do?

00:38:23 ◼   ► No.

00:38:24 ◼   ► Will there be...

00:38:25 ◼   ► I see two scenarios here.

00:38:26 ◼   ► One scenario is the thing that is also true about the independent businesses that do repairs

00:38:33 ◼   ► and stuff, which is a lot of people don't live anywhere near an Apple store.

00:38:38 ◼   ► I'm fortunate enough to live one exit on the freeway away from an Apple store, but there's

00:38:43 ◼   ► a guy there who spots me and knows who I am, which is very nice.

00:38:48 ◼   ► I need one of those people right now.

00:38:50 ◼   ► I got a hole in my t-shirt and I'm wearing a hat because I haven't showered yet and there's

00:38:54 ◼   ► somebody who's like, "Jason, I don't know."

00:38:56 ◼   ► I grew up in rural California.

00:39:00 ◼   ► A lot of people live nowhere near an independent repair shop, let alone an Apple store.

00:39:08 ◼   ► Maybe they've got an independent repair shop.

00:39:10 ◼   ► That's good if you do.

00:39:11 ◼   ► But there are a lot of people who live nowhere near, like hours drive away from help.

00:39:19 ◼   ► I think it's good that Apple is providing access to people who do repairs, but also

00:39:23 ◼   ► now to individuals because sometimes that's the best option is help me.

00:39:28 ◼   ► I just need to do this and I'm not gonna I don't have the time to drive two hours away.

00:39:34 ◼   ► Leave my phone not have a phone drive two hours back then spend days without a phone

00:39:40 ◼   ► and then two hours drive and like it's not practical and I know there's like mail in

00:39:45 ◼   ► there's mail in service and stuff you can do too but it's not it's not ideal and you're

00:39:50 ◼   ► potentially without your device for some amount of time. The second category is people who

00:39:56 ◼   ► are comfortable with tech stuff like this, and I guess that would be you and me.

00:39:59 ◼   ► I'd give it a go, for sure. I would give it a go.

00:40:02 ◼   ► Depends on how hairy it is. So my experience with this is not -- I mean, back in the day

00:40:07 ◼   ► I did computer stuff, back when computers were a little more open, but my experience

00:40:11 ◼   ► now is with stuff I fix in my house. It's like appliances and stuff, where there's YouTube

00:40:17 ◼   ► videos that say, "Okay, here's how you do this." And, you know, I've had this experience

00:40:20 ◼   ► multiple times where something breaks in an appliance in my house. I figure out what the

00:40:24 ◼   ► broken thing is. I order the part on the internet. The part shows up. I look at the YouTube video

00:40:30 ◼   ► and I fix my appliance. Yeah, I did it with my washing machine, did it with my dishwasher,

00:40:34 ◼   ► did it with my refrigerator. It's great because I would have previously had to try and find

00:40:39 ◼   ► a repair person and wait and spend a lot of money and maybe they would show up and sometimes

00:40:44 ◼   ► Sometimes they call and say, "Well, no, we're not going to service that particular brand

00:40:48 ◼   ► and you have to be back at Square Run."

00:40:51 ◼   ► It's really frustrating and I map that experience to this a little bit and think, "Well, now,

00:40:57 ◼   ► if you are so inclined or you don't have any other options, you will be able to get the

00:41:02 ◼   ► part from Apple and get the tools and get the instructions and probably, if not already,

00:41:09 ◼   ► very soon, watch the video on YouTube.

00:41:11 ◼   ► We're a very friendly guy in Nebraska."

00:41:14 ◼   ► I think it's the KitchenAid mixer guy in Nebraska, or maybe he's in Oklahoma.

00:41:17 ◼   ► I did a KitchenAid mixer thing too, right?

00:41:20 ◼   ► Very friendly guy who all he does is fix KitchenAid mixers in Oklahoma and like you'll find that

00:41:26 ◼   ► video and he'll be like, "Hey everybody, we're going to replace this iPhone 13 Apple screen

00:41:33 ◼   ► with the official Apple repair and here's how it works."

00:41:38 ◼   ► Some people are going to be like, "Oh Lord, no.

00:41:39 ◼   ► I'm never going to want to do that."

00:41:41 ◼   ► Other people are going to be like, "Great.

00:41:43 ◼   ► That's what I want."

00:41:44 ◼   ► 50 bucks by returning my old screen or whatever. Fantastic. Let's do it. So I think it's great.

00:41:50 ◼   ► I think it's not earth shattering in the same way that maybe people had hoped, but I think it shows

00:41:55 ◼   ► you a trend of Apple being more open to this kind of thing. I do think it speaks to the more

00:42:02 ◼   ► advanced or stable era we're in with smartphones and with all our devices where

00:42:13 ◼   ► There was a period where every single iPhone was engineered with zero tolerances because

00:42:21 ◼   ► they were in an arms race with Google and they were inventing the stuff as they went

00:42:26 ◼   ► and we're kind of out of that now.

00:42:28 ◼   ► So I think that there's a little more comfort factor in terms of doing this stuff.

00:42:32 ◼   ► And I think that also means Apple has also realized how much, how expensive it is to

00:42:37 ◼   ► service its own hardware even in Apple repair and Apple care and is is also sort of slowly

00:42:45 ◼   ► making if you look at the iFixit teardown of the MacBook Pro for example there's I think

00:42:50 ◼   ► slowly making their products more repairable when they can.

00:42:54 ◼   ► Yeah they put poor tabs on the batteries now which is which is actually quite a big deal.

00:42:58 ◼   ► Because never forget the number one repairer of Apple stuff is Apple and that means that

00:43:04 ◼   ► if they have to repair something that's under warranty, they got to eat the price of the

00:43:07 ◼   ► repair and they got to eat the labor of the repair.

00:43:12 ◼   ► So Apple is motivated within limits to make their products a little more repairable and

00:43:18 ◼   ► I think that we're starting to see that too.

00:43:20 ◼   ► So I think it's good news.

00:43:23 ◼   ► I don't think it's earth-shattering news but I think it's good news and I'm not sure I

00:43:28 ◼   ► would ever do this but I might.

00:43:29 ◼   ► I mean, I'm more interested in the Mac side

00:43:32 ◼   ► and they're starting with the iPhone,

00:43:33 ◼   ► but like I've bought the third party batteries

00:43:36 ◼   ► and try to put them in and all of that.

00:43:37 ◼   ► And like, would I do Apple approved battery repair

00:43:41 ◼   ► of my MacBook Air down the road?

00:43:44 ◼   ► I would seriously consider that, right?

00:43:46 ◼   ► I would feel very comfortable doing that

00:43:48 ◼   ► 'cause I've done it before.

00:43:50 ◼   ► And I might like the fact that it was all kind of like

00:43:52 ◼   ► under the auspices of Apple and that Apple had approved it.

00:43:55 ◼   ► - Also, you know, just, I know you,

00:43:57 ◼   ► I'm sure you're aware of this,

00:43:58 ◼   ► but just to have a full conversation on it.

00:44:01 ◼   ► This is also getting out ahead of potential right to repair

00:44:04 ◼   ► or just legislation, right?

00:44:06 ◼   ► - For sure.

00:44:07 ◼   ► - It helps them to expand it

00:44:09 ◼   ► because for all the reasons you mentioned,

00:44:11 ◼   ► they are genuine reasons.

00:44:13 ◼   ► And I'm sure we're in the pro column,

00:44:15 ◼   ► but another one in the pro column was,

00:44:17 ◼   ► let's not get governments on our case about something else

00:44:20 ◼   ► that is actually easier for us to fix.

00:44:23 ◼   ► And I actually think it goes a long way.

00:44:27 ◼   ► I think a lot of people that were anti-Apple

00:44:29 ◼   ► on the right to repair stance,

00:44:32 ◼   ► it was focused around Apple just wants to

00:44:34 ◼   ► gouge every dollar out of you.

00:44:36 ◼   ► They want you to pay for expensive repairs

00:44:38 ◼   ► and or they want your product to break

00:44:41 ◼   ► so you'll buy a new one.

00:44:43 ◼   ► And I think that this shows that that's not the case so much

00:44:47 ◼   ► because they are very protective of the App Store, right?

00:44:51 ◼   ► We've been talking about it for months now.

00:44:53 ◼   ► They are in so much more trouble

00:44:56 ◼   ► and they will not let it go, but with this,

00:44:59 ◼   ► they're just letting it go.

00:45:00 ◼   ► And considering how much more money they make in iPhones

00:45:03 ◼   ► than services right now,

00:45:05 ◼   ► I think that is a pretty clear indication

00:45:07 ◼   ► that the amount of people that buy new devices

00:45:11 ◼   ► just because they broke an old one,

00:45:12 ◼   ► I think shows, I would say that Apple would believe

00:45:15 ◼   ► it would be pretty slim.

00:45:16 ◼   ► - And like I said, I think it's more

00:45:18 ◼   ► extenuating circumstances that repairability

00:45:20 ◼   ► has just not been a priority with them.

00:45:22 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:45:22 ◼   ► - And that they've been more worried about

00:45:24 ◼   ► the building of them and getting them out there and the cost of the parts and getting

00:45:28 ◼   ► all the parts to fit.

00:45:29 ◼   ► And making them look as good as they possibly can.

00:45:31 ◼   ► Right, look as good, be as thin and light and all of those things.

00:45:35 ◼   ► But I do think that these products have matured now too and so they've got a little more

00:45:40 ◼   ► room to try and say, you know, you realize how much money we lose every time we have

00:45:45 ◼   ► to fix a phone under warranty.

00:45:47 ◼   ► Can we do something about that?

00:45:48 ◼   ► And maybe for five years they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:45:51 ◼   ► And now they're like, yeah, okay, we can make it more repairable.

00:45:54 ◼   ► we can put that on our priority list too.

00:45:56 ◼   ► - And like the maturity thing is also in the,

00:45:58 ◼   ► you know, the phones get a little bit thicker now

00:46:00 ◼   ► for bigger batteries and stuff like that

00:46:01 ◼   ► 'cause there's just less of a requirement

00:46:03 ◼   ► to continue going down the same paths.

00:46:07 ◼   ► - You mentioned right to repair.

00:46:08 ◼   ► The other motivator here, I think,

00:46:09 ◼   ► in terms of external factors, in terms of like the PR,

00:46:12 ◼   ► is Apple's commitment to the environment.

00:46:14 ◼   ► Like the making disposable things

00:46:18 ◼   ► is not environmentally friendly.

00:46:20 ◼   ► And they can talk about they've got a machine

00:46:22 ◼   ► disassembles them and all of those things but you know what really is

00:46:27 ◼   ► environmentally friendly is not having to buy a new phone because you can fix

00:46:32 ◼   ► your broken phone not having to throw away a motherboard because everything is

00:46:35 ◼   ► attached to the motherboard and without it you can't you can't you see you just

00:46:40 ◼   ► have to oh we got to replace the whole thing right that's not environmentally

00:46:44 ◼   ► friendly and I think that that is something that Apple legitimately cares

00:46:48 ◼   ► about as a company but was in conflict with the other priorities that they had

00:46:52 ◼   ► So that again not alone in driving a decision like this or a direction that they're going

00:46:59 ◼   ► But I think it's one other thing on the pile in terms of weighing how they approach this is it is

00:47:05 ◼   ► because you know they can get Lisa Jackson up there on the roof and all that but like if you if you make your

00:47:10 ◼   ► Products so that when they break you have to throw them away

00:47:13 ◼   ► And I know that they can be recycled and all that but just on a simple level

00:47:17 ◼   ► If there's a part that broke and you could fix it and keep using it or you could dispose of it

00:47:22 ◼   ► Even if you've got the best recycling system in the world

00:47:26 ◼   ► It's not as effective as fixing the product in terms of the environment

00:47:32 ◼   ► the best thing to do is to keep that phone in circulation and

00:47:35 ◼   ► Hand it down to somebody else and that might lose you a sale in the short term

00:47:41 ◼   ► But Tim Cook has extolled the virtues of the long life of their products and how it increases their install base

00:47:47 ◼   ► time and again. So it does fit in with that part of the philosophy to do something like

00:47:52 ◼   ► this. So I think that that's the environmental stuff is also a part of it where they were

00:47:56 ◼   ► not really walking the walk with this with this stuff. Now it remains to be seen like

00:48:01 ◼   ► if push comes to shove and Apple has to make a decision do I worry about repairability

00:48:05 ◼   ► or do I worry about making this product you know that we absolutely have to make whatever

00:48:10 ◼   ► the reason behind that is they're going to go for the product. But I feel like they're

00:48:14 ◼   ► in a place now with the iPhone where they feel less pressure to do that.

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00:50:36 ◼   ► We're going to come back to the rarely used segment, Upshift, where we talk about Apple's

00:50:44 ◼   ► car project. Jason's doing donuts in the studio over there. Mark Germen reporting for

00:50:53 ◼   ► Bloomberg. Okay. In recent years, Apple have been exploring two paths when it comes to

00:50:58 ◼   ► their car project. One is limited self driving, this is like features that we see on many

00:51:03 ◼   ► modern cars, think of your Tesla autopilot or you know like automatic cruise control

00:51:08 ◼   ► and lane guidance and all that kind of stuff. Or full self driving that requires no human

00:51:14 ◼   ► intervention. They have refocused their efforts on the latter, so Apple is now aiming for

00:51:21 ◼   ► their car project to be a full self driving car as the goal, that is what they want the

00:51:26 ◼   ► product to be. Kevin Lynch is now leading the team. Kevin Lynch came over to Apple to

00:51:33 ◼   ► run the Apple Watch project. Did a good job there. But this makes Lynch the fifth person

00:51:39 ◼   ► in charge of this team in the last seven years.

00:51:42 ◼   ► Oh no, Kevin Lynch, what have you done? What did you do to anger them that they put you

00:51:46 ◼   ► in charge of this thing?

00:51:48 ◼   ► Or do they want Kevin to leave? I don't know because everyone seems to leave. They've had

00:51:52 ◼   ► people retire.

00:51:53 ◼   ► Yeah, Kevin, congratulations. We think the world of you were putting you in this thankless task. Okay, good luck

00:51:59 ◼   ► Well, maybe it is what what it probably seems to be or like it the other option is they're struggling with this project

00:52:04 ◼   ► They need someone for proven track record internal because they brought in some external hires to run this and stuff. It hasn't the real

00:52:09 ◼   ► Internal to get this take it across the finish line right like like Kevin did with the Apple watch

00:52:15 ◼   ► Yep

00:52:16 ◼   ► quote from Mark Gurman Apple's ideal car would have no steering wheel and pedals and its interior will be

00:52:22 ◼   ► be designed around hands-off driving. They have discussed equipping the car of an emergency

00:52:27 ◼   ► takeover mode.

00:52:28 ◼   ► Okay, let's stop right there. I'm sorry, do we have to say, "Hey car, stop because I can't

00:52:36 ◼   ► stop it myself"? Here's the thing, self-driving as a goal is great.

00:52:42 ◼   ► Sounds great. Future. Sounds amazing.

00:52:46 ◼   ► And Germin's report talks about how they're building a processor with a zillion neural

00:52:51 ◼   ► engines in order to do this and it's going to run hot so they're worrying about cooling

00:52:56 ◼   ► them. Like, folks, cars are really good at cooling. There are lots of hot things in cars.

00:53:01 ◼   ► It'll be fine. Engines. Yeah, I mean, well, our engine is not that hot, but our processor

00:53:06 ◼   ► is. It's like, we work it out. We'll put the radiator next to it. It'll be fine. So I'm

00:53:11 ◼   ► not worried about that. I love the goal being full self-driving. Now, Google's waymo is

00:53:18 ◼   ► trying to do it, Tesla's been trying to do it, Elon Musk keeps talking about full self-driving,

00:53:23 ◼   ► they haven't figured it out. It's hard. It's really hard. I think it's a good goal. I think

00:53:29 ◼   ► obviously though, the way, let's assume that something resembling full self-driving does

00:53:36 ◼   ► eventually exist. It's hard to imagine that it's not going to be in stages where it's

00:53:43 ◼   ► like well on freeways in California and then eventually everywhere it'll work.

00:53:50 ◼   ► So when you're on the freeway you can now put it into full self-drive and lean back

00:53:55 ◼   ► and relax and do not have to worry at all.

00:53:59 ◼   ► It is going to be completely safe.

00:54:02 ◼   ► That's a big leap by the way but I could see that as a first step.

00:54:05 ◼   ► And then the next step is going to be like at certain times of day or in certain areas

00:54:10 ◼   ► that are super mapped and we've got all the knowledge, you will be able to summon your

00:54:15 ◼   ► car and have it come to you or tell it to go somewhere and it'll drive you there. And

00:54:20 ◼   ► then over time it will grow and it will grow and maybe someday you'll be able to, that

00:54:26 ◼   ► all cars will be able to drive themselves everywhere. Probably not.

00:54:29 ◼   ► I don't even think this is a maybe someday thing. I think this is an inevitability at

00:54:33 ◼   ► some point in the future.

00:54:35 ◼   ► On an infinite time scale, maybe. Although even then you would probably need what this

00:54:39 ◼   ► story says is like emergency takeover mode in case you get your wheel gets stuck or something

00:54:44 ◼   ► like that right where it's like oh no the computer doesn't know what to do.

00:54:47 ◼   ► At first.

00:54:48 ◼   ► But here's the problem.

00:54:49 ◼   ► This report saying that their ideal car would have no steering wheel and pedals.

00:54:56 ◼   ► Okay.

00:54:57 ◼   ► No one's gonna buy that car.

00:54:58 ◼   ► It doesn't necessarily mean that there wouldn't be controls.

00:55:01 ◼   ► You might be able to control it with a touchscreen or something or a joystick.

00:55:05 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:55:06 ◼   ► Not a steering wheel and pedals.

00:55:07 ◼   ► But this is where this report runs off the road and into a ditch, which is, I am open

00:55:17 ◼   ► to the idea of self-driving.

00:55:20 ◼   ► And he's saying 2025 is their target date for this car.

00:55:24 ◼   ► I am not open to the idea that self-driving will be so foolproof that you won't need

00:55:28 ◼   ► controls in your car.

00:55:32 ◼   ► Not to be too aggressive here about this, but let me put it this way.

00:55:37 ◼   ► this is what I said on six colors this I want to call this kind of idea like a

00:55:42 ◼   ► moonshot except for one thing which is the other guy who's trying to do this is

00:55:47 ◼   ► literally trying to send people to the moon shot and that's gonna happen this

00:55:51 ◼   ► decade this isn't so I like it's I maybe it's just a goal like what if we had no

00:56:00 ◼   ► steering wheel and pedals what if we built it that way but I am telling you

00:56:03 ◼   ► you, if Apple doesn't want to do a car unless it doesn't have a steering wheel and pedals

00:56:10 ◼   ► or other like user controls, Apple will never ship a car. Period. Never this decade, let's

00:56:18 ◼   ► say. Never in the next 10 years will ship a car.

00:56:21 ◼   ► So Apple are targeting this project to be within the next five years, I think. Or within

00:56:28 ◼   ► the next, I think it's within the next five years, I believe. I'll check this out. For

00:56:32 ◼   ► for some reason I didn't pull this out.

00:56:34 ◼   ► - Targeting I think 2025 is what they said,

00:56:37 ◼   ► which is really soon.

00:56:40 ◼   ► - Even if it works, right?

00:56:43 ◼   ► Let's imagine it works.

00:56:45 ◼   ► Like they have created the technology

00:56:48 ◼   ► and Apple can have built a car

00:56:50 ◼   ► which unbelievably fully self-drives

00:56:52 ◼   ► everywhere on the planet.

00:56:54 ◼   ► People would not buy a car in four years from now

00:56:58 ◼   ► that does not have a steering wheel.

00:57:00 ◼   ► - I think you're right,

00:57:01 ◼   ► but I don't think it even gets to that point.

00:57:03 ◼   ► Because my point here is,

00:57:05 ◼   ► I'm not as negative on full self-driving

00:57:07 ◼   ► as some people are, John Siracusa.

00:57:09 ◼   ► I think that there are levels of it

00:57:12 ◼   ► that are probably gonna happen

00:57:14 ◼   ► and even happen pretty soon.

00:57:15 ◼   ► Even like Tesla, I think that Tesla will ultimately

00:57:18 ◼   ► get to the point where they feel confident

00:57:22 ◼   ► in saying you can be on the freeway

00:57:25 ◼   ► and the car is gonna do the right thing.

00:57:27 ◼   ► It'll probably take them a lot longer than they expect.

00:57:29 ◼   ► But I think it will happen at some point

00:57:30 ◼   ► some degree in certain locations, in certain situations will be drivable. I'm not 100%

00:57:38 ◼   ► confident but I'm like, I think that'll probably happen. But it is an enormous leap to say

00:57:44 ◼   ► we don't need controls anymore because it's all going to be so good in so many places.

00:57:48 ◼   ► And we'll have a little emergency thing that, I don't know, is that like a little steering

00:57:52 ◼   ► wheel like pops out of the dash in case of an emergency and the lights go red and now

00:57:56 ◼   ► you're in weird driving mode. It seems like a fantasy to me. So I read this German article

00:58:03 ◼   ► and I think to myself, "Well, that's interesting." And then I get to this point and I'm like,

00:58:06 ◼   ► "Well, that's never going to happen." It's a Mark German report. Maybe it's aspirational.

00:58:14 ◼   ► But I look at this and I think, "If you're motivating your employees and be like, 'We

00:58:18 ◼   ► want to build this so good that you don't need a steering wheel,' that's fine. But

00:58:21 ◼   ► if you really think you're going to make a car and sell it and it's not going to

00:58:24 ◼   ► have controls because your full self-driving is going to be so good that people don't

00:58:28 ◼   ► need controls. You're, you're, you're, it's a fantasy. It's just a fantasy. It's

00:58:34 ◼   ► ridiculous. Come on. It's ridiculous. So I don't know. I don't know what to say.

00:58:38 ◼   ► As somebody who's been sort of like neutral on the Apple car, I look at this story and

00:58:42 ◼   ► like part of the story makes me think, oh, maybe they'll be able to pull this off.

00:58:46 ◼   ► And then I get to that part and I think this is a joke.

00:58:48 ◼   ► I think I agree with you actually. Uh, just to continue and then we've got a little bit

00:58:53 ◼   ► I've got a little bit more I want to say on that.

00:58:54 ◼   ► Naturally, an Apple car product would feature touch screens

00:58:57 ◼   ► to be heavily integrated

00:58:58 ◼   ► with its existing range of products and services, right?

00:59:01 ◼   ► It's said that, as you mentioned,

00:59:02 ◼   ► they've finished the groundwork for a CPU,

00:59:05 ◼   ► and they're actually planning to equip

00:59:06 ◼   ► a current fleet of Lexus vehicles

00:59:09 ◼   ► that they're using for testing with this CPU,

00:59:11 ◼   ► they're gonna retrofit.

00:59:13 ◼   ► And Apple are continuing to hire lots of people

00:59:15 ◼   ► from all across the auto industry to make this project work.

00:59:19 ◼   ► So one of the things for me,

00:59:22 ◼   ► like building on what you were saying,

00:59:24 ◼   ► is I'm not sure that any company could all of a sudden

00:59:28 ◼   ► offer this kind of product, a self-driving product.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Forget the wheel.

00:59:31 ◼   ► Imagine they put a wheel and pedals in it, right?

00:59:33 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:59:33 ◼   ► - Or like, you know, the wheel and pedals

00:59:35 ◼   ► are hidden behind the dashboard and you press a button

00:59:38 ◼   ► and they come out and you're in emergency mode, right?

00:59:39 ◼   ► - It's like the Batmobile, yeah, exactly.

00:59:42 ◼   ► - Even if like all of this existed, like, and worked,

00:59:48 ◼   ► I just can't imagine people would buy Apple's product.

00:59:52 ◼   ► And actually, I don't even think it's possible for Apple

00:59:54 ◼   ► to all of a sudden be like,

00:59:56 ◼   ► here's our full self-driving car.

00:59:58 ◼   ► Because like a company like Tesla would be first

01:00:02 ◼   ► to be able to do something that is in theory

01:00:04 ◼   ► because they already have hundreds of thousands of cars

01:00:07 ◼   ► driving on real roads collecting data for them.

01:00:11 ◼   ► Apple currently have 69 Lexuses driving in California.

01:00:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is the,

01:00:19 ◼   ► I think this is one of the big questions,

01:00:20 ◼   ► which is Apple's MO is don't ship it until it's ready

01:00:24 ◼   ► and don't do your research in public.

01:00:27 ◼   ► I mean, they do ship it eventually

01:00:29 ◼   ► and then obviously like the first Apple Watch

01:00:30 ◼   ► was very limited and then they iterate.

01:00:32 ◼   ► But there's this feeling philosophically at Apple

01:00:35 ◼   ► that there are certain products that are so early

01:00:38 ◼   ► in the lifespan of the technology

01:00:40 ◼   ► that you can't subject the public to it

01:00:43 ◼   ► and you can't charge them for it.

01:00:45 ◼   ► And this is when we talk about the AR stuff,

01:00:48 ◼   ► AR and VR stuff.

01:00:49 ◼   ► That's why we came up with our idea that the first one will be more like a developer kit,

01:00:53 ◼   ► is because they may not want to subject the public to this thing, or subject the product

01:01:00 ◼   ► to the scrutiny of something that's not really ready and doesn't really fulfill all of Apple's

01:01:04 ◼   ► goals, but you've got to start somewhere.

01:01:07 ◼   ► The challenge is, with the car, that I think you're right, you kind of do need to learn

01:01:14 ◼   ► a lot out in public.

01:01:17 ◼   ► And I don't know if Apple could pull off just saying, "Well, our test cars are now

01:01:23 ◼   ► at 100% and so here's the product.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Enjoy!

01:01:26 ◼   ► Here it is!"

01:01:28 ◼   ► And first off, people are going to need to see it work and they're going to need to

01:01:32 ◼   ► find trust with it, which is why I keep thinking the most likely scenario here is they will

01:01:36 ◼   ► get to a point where they will think their technology stack is so amazing, including

01:01:40 ◼   ► this processor, that they go to a partner and they either build a traditional electric

01:01:46 ◼   ► car with a partner or something like that.

01:01:51 ◼   ► - They have to partner with someone.

01:01:53 ◼   ► - Right. - They have to partner

01:01:54 ◼   ► with someone. - But it's hard to imagine

01:01:56 ◼   ► that their first step is not getting a car body

01:02:00 ◼   ► from essentially from another manufacturer

01:02:03 ◼   ► and doing a special version of it

01:02:05 ◼   ► that's got Apple's brains in it

01:02:07 ◼   ► that is either branded as an Apple car

01:02:10 ◼   ► or is branded as a Lexus with Apple inside.

01:02:14 ◼   ► - So what you're saying is they're gonna make

01:02:16 ◼   ► a Motorola rocker on wheels. No, because they would control the inside,

01:02:21 ◼   ► it would be, you know, in a way that the rocker wasn't. But, but it is, although that's a

01:02:27 ◼   ► terrifying, a Motorola rocker on wheels is terrifying, and don't even try to imagine

01:02:31 ◼   ► what that would look like. It is, like that is the logical step, and I don't know whether

01:02:37 ◼   ► they will get there or not, but clearly the first step if you're going to do Apple cars

01:02:42 ◼   ► is to put it out there in something that's more like a traditional car and get time with

01:02:50 ◼   ► it.

01:02:51 ◼   ► And if that doesn't need to be an Apple branded car and it's more like an Apple brains inside

01:02:56 ◼   ► this electric car from whoever the manufacturer is, that seems to be the next approach, which

01:03:01 ◼   ► is why this report is so perplexing because it's talking about this.

01:03:06 ◼   ► It's just, not to mix my transportation metaphors, but it's putting the cart before the horse.

01:03:10 ◼   ► It is not the full self-driving horse.

01:03:13 ◼   ► The cart before the self-driving horse, yes.

01:03:15 ◼   ► Full self-riding.

01:03:16 ◼   ► It is the end point.

01:03:20 ◼   ► It is the end goal, not the beginning goal.

01:03:22 ◼   ► The beginning goal has to be something that's less ambitious.

01:03:26 ◼   ► Not saying kill your ambition, I'm saying start, be a little less ambitious because

01:03:32 ◼   ► it's never going to happen if the way you get this product out there is with no controls

01:03:37 ◼   ► in it.

01:03:38 ◼   ► It's never going to happen.

01:03:39 ◼   ► So be realistic.

01:03:40 ◼   ► I'm all for setting goals.

01:03:41 ◼   ► - Yes, but like writing this on a whiteboard

01:03:44 ◼   ► in the design room, right?

01:03:45 ◼   ► And it lives there.

01:03:46 ◼   ► And it's like, it's like believe, right?

01:03:48 ◼   ► Like this is what we are going for.

01:03:51 ◼   ► But this is not version one.

01:03:54 ◼   ► - No.

01:03:55 ◼   ► - It's way too much.

01:03:57 ◼   ► Way too, that's how it feels to me.

01:03:59 ◼   ► I will never discount Apple's ability to surprise me, right?

01:04:03 ◼   ► Like over the last, I don't know how many decades now

01:04:07 ◼   ► I've been following this company.

01:04:08 ◼   ► you know, maybe 15 years for me, right?

01:04:11 ◼   ► They've always, every now and then,

01:04:13 ◼   ► many times they have surprised me with their ability.

01:04:17 ◼   ► But this is a big leap.

01:04:18 ◼   ► This is a big, big leap.

01:04:20 ◼   ► Because ultimately, an iPhone going wrong

01:04:24 ◼   ► doesn't kill someone.

01:04:26 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

01:04:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I think, I wanna give, you know,

01:04:30 ◼   ► Mark Gurman says, "Apple's ideal car."

01:04:33 ◼   ► And the way he phrases it,

01:04:35 ◼   ► it makes it sound like that's what they want,

01:04:37 ◼   ► but it may very well be that it really is like,

01:04:40 ◼   ► they know it's the ideal,

01:04:42 ◼   ► and they know they're not gonna be able to do that,

01:04:45 ◼   ► but they want it, you know,

01:04:46 ◼   ► the way we motivate our engineers

01:04:48 ◼   ► to work on this self-driving thing is,

01:04:49 ◼   ► imagine if nobody ever needed to use a steering wheel.

01:04:52 ◼   ► That's okay for motivation,

01:04:54 ◼   ► but the way it reads in the German story

01:04:56 ◼   ► is a little more like they might actually believe

01:04:58 ◼   ► that they could do it,

01:04:59 ◼   ► and if that's the case, it's a fantasy and it's ridiculous,

01:05:01 ◼   ► but it may just be the believe sign, right?

01:05:04 ◼   ► Like you said, every time they leave Apple Park

01:05:07 ◼   ► on a Monday or a Wednesday or a Thursday,

01:05:10 ◼   ► or what is it, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday?

01:05:12 ◼   ► They leave and they tap the sign

01:05:15 ◼   ► of the driverless Apple car on their way out.

01:05:17 ◼   ► It's slightly askew, it has no steering wheel,

01:05:19 ◼   ► they tap it and they go on their way.

01:05:21 ◼   ► But the reality is gonna be a little different.

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01:08:14 ◼   ► Let's finish up the show today with some #AskUpgrade questions.

01:08:19 ◼   ► First one comes from Martin.

01:08:21 ◼   ► How often do you take screenshots by accident with your iPhone when you just want to hit

01:08:26 ◼   ► the power button?

01:08:27 ◼   ► seems to happen to me every day to cite someone, I might be holding it wrong.

01:08:32 ◼   ► It's endless. I do this all the time.

01:08:33 ◼   ► Oh, okay. Like all throughout the day?

01:08:36 ◼   ► Well not throughout the day but there's certain -- it just happens. It happens when I'm reaching

01:08:42 ◼   ► for the phone or I'm trying to do something in particular. Sometimes it's that I'm trying

01:08:45 ◼   ► to adjust the volume but I unwittingly have my hand on another button or I need to squeeze

01:08:51 ◼   ► the phone a little bit so that my volume button will be registered, but I unfortunately am

01:08:57 ◼   ► squeezing it on the other button and so you end up with a screenshot. I wish there was

01:09:01 ◼   ► a gesture that was "forget that screenshot", right? You've got the gesture to tap and bring

01:09:08 ◼   ► it up at which point you can delete it. And you've got the gesture to just get the little

01:09:11 ◼   ► floater off the screen. Oh, you can just swipe it away, but that saves it. That saves it,

01:09:16 ◼   ► right? So I want, I wish there was some sort of a gesture, I don't know, I grab it and

01:09:20 ◼   ► I like spin it around and chuck it off the side or something.

01:09:23 ◼   ► I want the like away with you screenshot.

01:09:25 ◼   ► No, I begone with you gesture.

01:09:29 ◼   ► But failing that, yeah, it totally happens.

01:09:31 ◼   ► Again, I remember when the first iPhone shipped

01:09:34 ◼   ► and it didn't have a screenshot shortcut

01:09:36 ◼   ► and we had to like jailbreak the iPhone

01:09:39 ◼   ► and attach it to a cable.

01:09:43 ◼   ► And when you got the screen the way you wanted it,

01:09:44 ◼   ► you had to issue a shell command on the iPhone,

01:09:47 ◼   ► which would grab it.

01:09:48 ◼   ► and then you had to use a file transfer thing

01:09:51 ◼   ► that you had uploaded to the iPhone

01:09:52 ◼   ► to basically FTP it back across the line

01:09:56 ◼   ► to get screenshots.

01:09:57 ◼   ► So what I'm saying is,

01:09:59 ◼   ► I'm glad we can take screenshots on the iPhone.

01:10:02 ◼   ► I just do it by accident a lot.

01:10:05 ◼   ► - I tend to only do it when I'm trying to turn my alarm off.

01:10:10 ◼   ► Oh, so it's my alarm? - Oh, interesting.

01:10:11 ◼   ► So you get a lot of screenshots of your alarm.

01:10:13 ◼   ► - I get a lot of screenshots that just say alarm.

01:10:16 ◼   ► You know, like the alarm?

01:10:18 ◼   ► like screen that I get a lot of those ones because usually I'm just grabbing for my phone

01:10:25 ◼   ► and just squeezing it. That's my typical task.

01:10:29 ◼   ► Yes, make it stop, make it stop. Oh God, make it stop.

01:10:33 ◼   ► Rajeev asks, this is actually a tangential question, "Do either of you use sleep tracking

01:10:37 ◼   ► of an Apple Watch? If you do, what benefits or metrics do you get out of it?"

01:10:42 ◼   ► I tried it with the new watch that I got, which has longer battery life and it has the

01:10:49 ◼   ► fast charge and all of that.

01:10:51 ◼   ► I've tried it.

01:10:52 ◼   ► I turn on the sleep thing so it now buzzes me at 10 at night and says, "You should start

01:10:56 ◼   ► winding down," and all of that.

01:10:59 ◼   ► One night I wore it, and although I think I could probably wear it every night, I'm

01:11:03 ◼   ► unclear on what the benefits are too.

01:11:06 ◼   ► It feels weird to sleep with a watch, and so I would need to get over that.

01:11:11 ◼   ► I'm open to the possibility of doing it eventually, but I haven't done it consistently.

01:11:16 ◼   ► I just tried it a couple of times and it told me that I wasn't sleeping enough and I agreed.

01:11:21 ◼   ► I knew that already.

01:11:24 ◼   ► So I haven't done more than that.

01:11:27 ◼   ► It did tell me like it's doing some monitoring of my oxygen and my heart rate and stuff overnight

01:11:33 ◼   ► and it's logging sort of like when I'm awake and when I'm asleep.

01:11:37 ◼   ► It sets modes in focus, right?

01:11:39 ◼   ► So it puts you in sleep mode, so it doesn't bug you as much when you're asleep, which

01:11:44 ◼   ► is good.

01:11:45 ◼   ► So there are advantages of it, but I haven't stuck with it.

01:11:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't do this.

01:11:49 ◼   ► It's like a combination of things.

01:11:51 ◼   ► One, I wouldn't want to, and I would hate to sleep with a watch on.

01:11:56 ◼   ► I would not find that comfortable at all.

01:11:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it's weird.

01:11:59 ◼   ► I don't want to have to manage the battery of my Apple Watch, right?

01:12:06 ◼   ► Right now, I just take my phone, my watch off the charger in the morning and I put it

01:12:12 ◼   ► on the charger when I go to bed.

01:12:13 ◼   ► I don't want to have to think about charging my watch through the day.

01:12:15 ◼   ► I'm not interested in that.

01:12:18 ◼   ► And you know people say, "Hey, just get up and get written up."

01:12:20 ◼   ► I just, one of the first things I do every day is take my watch off the charger and put

01:12:24 ◼   ► my watch on.

01:12:25 ◼   ► That is the way I want to live my life.

01:12:27 ◼   ► I don't want to have to not do that.

01:12:30 ◼   ► That's just how I live my life.

01:12:31 ◼   ► It's my choice.

01:12:33 ◼   ► I also honestly like just from a basic level,

01:12:38 ◼   ► I don't know what I'm supposed to get out

01:12:41 ◼   ► of the idea of sleep tracking.

01:12:42 ◼   ► Like I don't know what it's supposed to give me

01:12:44 ◼   ► because if it's telling me like, hey, you're not rested,

01:12:47 ◼   ► I can't do anything about that, I'm sleeping.

01:12:50 ◼   ► Right, like I'm already sleeping.

01:12:52 ◼   ► - Do it. - And I also like you.

01:12:53 ◼   ► - Sleep more.

01:12:54 ◼   ► - I know I have a weird sleep schedule

01:12:57 ◼   ► and it's not good enough.

01:12:57 ◼   ► The Apple Watch doesn't need to tell me that,

01:12:59 ◼   ► I already know that.

01:13:00 ◼   ► So I am not saying it is not good for people.

01:13:04 ◼   ► I just don't see why I would want to do it for me.

01:13:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm a big fan of getting stats about yourself,

01:13:13 ◼   ► but having to commit to wearing my Apple Watch every night

01:13:16 ◼   ► in order to get sleep stats

01:13:18 ◼   ► is not something I'm willing to do at this point.

01:13:22 ◼   ► If I was having a sleep problem, I would consider it,

01:13:25 ◼   ► but I'm not, so I don't.

01:13:27 ◼   ► - I would be open to some kind of device

01:13:29 ◼   ► that monitored my sleep. I mean, like, not massively, but.

01:13:31 ◼   ► - You know, I bought a Bedit.

01:13:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I bought a Bedit,

01:13:34 ◼   ► which is a passive, it's a little strip

01:13:36 ◼   ► that you put on your bed, and it basically monitors you

01:13:39 ◼   ► and when you're sleeping and all of that,

01:13:41 ◼   ► and it's just, it's totally passive.

01:13:43 ◼   ► And the problem that I had with it was,

01:13:45 ◼   ► you have to place it, every time you change the sheets,

01:13:47 ◼   ► you've gotta replace it.

01:13:48 ◼   ► It's gotta have, it's gotta be within Bluetooth range

01:13:51 ◼   ► of your phone, and as you know,

01:13:52 ◼   ► I don't actually keep my phone.

01:13:54 ◼   ► If they did a WiFi version, 'cause the Apple Watch

01:13:56 ◼   ► is on the WiFi, so it talks to my phone when I'm wearing it.

01:13:58 ◼   ► They did a Wi-Fi version of something like that or something I could put in a pillow

01:14:02 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:14:03 ◼   ► Something that was a little even more kind of fuss free but you know I used that Betit

01:14:07 ◼   ► for a little while and it was it just didn't kind of work right.

01:14:10 ◼   ► Apple bought that technology so who knows what they'll do with it.

01:14:14 ◼   ► But I would be open to something like that but that's it.

01:14:16 ◼   ► This is one of those like wholly owned subsidiary companies and I bet it you can still get it.

01:14:22 ◼   ► It's still a thing that exists.

01:14:23 ◼   ► Apple owns it which is very weird.

01:14:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, and in the end I was not willing to move

01:14:29 ◼   ► where my iPhone lives to be by my bed

01:14:32 ◼   ► in order to use the bedded, so I just sort of gave up.

01:14:35 ◼   ► - Roger asks, "Do you think it's worth getting

01:14:37 ◼   ► "the AirPods Max dedicated mostly

01:14:39 ◼   ► "for surround sound movie watching?

01:14:41 ◼   ► "I've got small kids and can't really have my pair

01:14:43 ◼   ► "of HomePods blasting away at night."

01:14:45 ◼   ► I'll say yeah, I really like the AirPods Max,

01:14:48 ◼   ► I think they're great and they do a good job

01:14:50 ◼   ► of the spatial audio stuff, they sound really good.

01:14:53 ◼   ► If this is something that you really care about

01:14:55 ◼   ► and you can afford it, I recommend doing it.

01:14:59 ◼   ► Like it just seems like an easy recommendation to me.

01:15:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't have AirPods Max.

01:15:03 ◼   ► You can use AirPods Pro to do this too

01:15:05 ◼   ► and they don't leak too badly and they're cheaper.

01:15:10 ◼   ► So it really depends on your comfort level.

01:15:13 ◼   ► But I do watch shows at night sometimes

01:15:16 ◼   ► with the AirPods Pro in and they're great.

01:15:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, will also work.

01:15:21 ◼   ► Like it just depends on what you're looking for,

01:15:22 ◼   ► but they will both do a good job.

01:15:24 ◼   ► And finally today Sims asks have both of you been able to keep the same second gen Apple pencil since you bought it originally in

01:15:32 ◼   ► 2018 or have you had to replace any of them since then? Huh? I haven't had one die

01:15:38 ◼   ► Yep, but I ended up I ended up with two. Yep, and

01:15:42 ◼   ► I I can't tell them apart. They're not labeled. They're just Apple pencil

01:15:47 ◼   ► But they float around the house and sometimes I use one and sometimes they use the other and I looking I'm like

01:15:53 ◼   ► I know that I left that one out there.

01:15:54 ◼   ► Oh, there's one right here.

01:15:55 ◼   ► And so I ended up with two of them

01:15:57 ◼   ► and I just kind of used them interchangeably

01:15:58 ◼   ► and I can't tell them apart.

01:16:00 ◼   ► So that happened.

01:16:03 ◼   ► They just keep multiplying.

01:16:05 ◼   ► That's it though.

01:16:06 ◼   ► They both work fine and I haven't had any trouble.

01:16:08 ◼   ► In fact, at some point I wanna write a thing about this.

01:16:11 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure what I'll say

01:16:13 ◼   ► because that's sort of the point is the Apple Pencil,

01:16:16 ◼   ► I know we said this at the time,

01:16:17 ◼   ► but just I still use it to edit podcasts.

01:16:21 ◼   ► I love it.

01:16:22 ◼   ► It is the most non-technological tech product I've ever used.

01:16:27 ◼   ► It feels like a solid object that has, there's nothing.

01:16:34 ◼   ► Like the other day it wasn't working

01:16:36 ◼   ► and I realized I had to screw the tip in a little bit more.

01:16:38 ◼   ► It had come unscrewed a little bit.

01:16:40 ◼   ► That's the most effort that I've ever put

01:16:43 ◼   ► toward the Apple Pencil

01:16:44 ◼   ► other than snapping it on the side of my iPad.

01:16:46 ◼   ► And I just think it's remarkable.

01:16:49 ◼   ► I think it's remarkable that it feels so non-technical.

01:16:53 ◼   ► There's no light on it.

01:16:54 ◼   ► There's no button on it.

01:16:56 ◼   ► There's just nothing.

01:16:57 ◼   ► I think it's great, but I have not had a failure

01:17:00 ◼   ► of any kind with one.

01:17:01 ◼   ► - Same.

01:17:02 ◼   ► I mean, I think the second gen Apple Pencil

01:17:04 ◼   ► is one of the best things Apple's ever made.

01:17:06 ◼   ► Like just from a like,

01:17:08 ◼   ► hey, what is this thing supposed to do?

01:17:10 ◼   ► And like its ultimate execution.

01:17:12 ◼   ► It's like, it's perfect.

01:17:13 ◼   ► It's absolutely perfect.

01:17:14 ◼   ► - The first one's got weird things about it, right?

01:17:16 ◼   ► with the lightning thing and the tip and all of that,

01:17:19 ◼   ► but the second generation one is just kind of flawless.

01:17:22 ◼   ► - Gen one was fit for purpose, retrofit into a product

01:17:26 ◼   ► that already existed, you know,

01:17:28 ◼   ► like a form factor that already existed.

01:17:30 ◼   ► - How do we charge this thing?

01:17:32 ◼   ► - Gen two, they designed them together.

01:17:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly right.

01:17:35 ◼   ► - And it's just fantastic for that.

01:17:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, the only, and I, my only complaint about it

01:17:40 ◼   ► is that I think the accelerometer that they put in it

01:17:43 ◼   ► is not accurate enough for me to use those features.

01:17:46 ◼   ► - The double tap thing?

01:17:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I miss double tap,

01:17:49 ◼   ► so I basically turned it off where I use it

01:17:52 ◼   ► because I just do it by accident.

01:17:54 ◼   ► I can't trigger it reliably and I trigger it by accident.

01:17:59 ◼   ► So in neither case is it worth having it.

01:18:02 ◼   ► So I would say if they update this at some point,

01:18:05 ◼   ► I would love there to be an alternate gesture of some sort.

01:18:08 ◼   ► I would prefer it to be,

01:18:12 ◼   ► I mean it needs to be engineered differently than it is.

01:18:14 ◼   ► I don't know whether that's a button or whether it's a touch sensitive area or whether it's

01:18:17 ◼   ► just a better accelerometer or what it is.

01:18:23 ◼   ► But I would really like to, I like the idea of having a gesture on the device but the

01:18:30 ◼   ► gesture that they built I don't use because it's not reliable.

01:18:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I would like to see two things if we're going to go button, programmable button and

01:18:38 ◼   ► touch sense like a not not touching a sensitive area on the opposite side for a racing. Oh, yeah

01:18:45 ◼   ► Yeah, that would be that would be a lot of fun to have the alternate basically an alternate input side on the other side

01:18:51 ◼   ► Little two-headed pencil the two-headed pencil, but like a great just a fantastic

01:18:55 ◼   ► Racer you could you could have apps could use it as a different type of pen, right?

01:19:00 ◼   ► There are lots of different things you could do programable like the double-tap thing is exactly different apps can use it different ways

01:19:07 ◼   ► But like these things would they would just be nice to have for me that they don't need to do either of those like because

01:19:12 ◼   ► It really is is so it's just such a good thing. It's so well

01:19:16 ◼   ► Simplicity just it's amazing

01:19:18 ◼   ► If you'd like to send in a question for us to answer on the show just send out a tweet with the hashtag

01:19:23 ◼   ► Ask upgrade or use question mark ask upgrade in the relay FM members discord that you can get access to

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01:19:39 ◼   ► If you enjoy the show, you get more of it with no interruptions.

01:19:43 ◼   ► Thank you so much to everybody that has signed up.

01:19:45 ◼   ► All of you Upgradients, we really, really appreciate your support.

01:19:49 ◼   ► Also thank you to DoorDash, Member4 and ZocDoc for their support of this week's episode.

01:19:54 ◼   ► But most importantly, as always, thank you for listening.

01:19:58 ◼   ► If you'd like to find Jason online, you can go to SixColors.com, TheIncomparable.com,

01:20:02 ◼   ► He's @JSnell on Twitter.

01:20:04 ◼   ► I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E,

01:20:06 ◼   ► and we both host here many shows at Relay FM.

01:20:09 ◼   ► You go to relay.fm/shows and check out all of the great

01:20:12 ◼   ► shows that we have to offer for you.

01:20:15 ◼   ► So until next week, say goodbye Jason Snell.

01:20:18 ◼   ► - Goodbye Myke Hurley.

01:20:19 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:20:21 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]