Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 454.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN

00:00:16 ◼   ► and Ooni Pizza Ovens.

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

00:00:19 ◼   ► Hi, Jason.

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

00:00:22 ◼   ► - I'm very good, how are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► Happy Easter.

00:00:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, sure, hi.

00:00:27 ◼   ► I went to a baseball game yesterday.

00:00:28 ◼   ► - Chocolate time.

00:00:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was a nice time.

00:00:29 ◼   ► - Did you have chocolate involved in the baseball game?

00:00:31 ◼   ► - I had some marshmallow peeps.

00:00:33 ◼   ► No, there was no chocolate at the baseball game for me.

00:00:35 ◼   ► I did have some marshmallow peeps yesterday.

00:00:36 ◼   ► So that was great.

00:00:38 ◼   ► A tradition like none, like no other.

00:00:40 ◼   ► - I don't think I've ever had a peep.

00:00:42 ◼   ► - Have you had a marshmallow?

00:00:44 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:00:45 ◼   ► - It's like that.

00:00:46 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:00:47 ◼   ► - With a little bit of like, I don't know,

00:00:51 ◼   ► sugar sprinkles on top.

00:00:52 ◼   ► It's basically just, which is unnecessary,

00:00:54 ◼   ► but that's what it is.

00:00:56 ◼   ► That's all it is.

00:00:57 ◼   ► Marshmallow peeps, they're marshmallows.

00:01:00 ◼   ► - I have a snow talk question for you

00:01:01 ◼   ► to start off this week's episode.

00:01:03 ◼   ► Comes from Marley's. - Is it about marshmallows?

00:01:04 ◼   ► - No, it's not.

00:01:05 ◼   ► It's about audio logos.

00:01:08 ◼   ► Marley's asks, "I personally really like

00:01:10 ◼   ► "the Apple TV+ thunk,

00:01:13 ◼   ► "but the THX and HBO ones are absolute classics.

00:01:16 ◼   ► "What's your favorite?"

00:01:18 ◼   ► - By thunk, does Marley's mean the C chord

00:01:21 ◼   ► that's the startup sound for every Mac

00:01:23 ◼   ► and then also is the startup sound for Apple TV+?

00:01:25 ◼   ► (mimics drum roll)

00:01:28 ◼   ► I assume.

00:01:29 ◼   ► - Nope.

00:01:31 ◼   ► - Audio logos, THX is that

00:01:32 ◼   ► kind of thing.

00:01:35 ◼   ► - And then HBO is like

00:01:38 ◼   ► (mimics drum roll)

00:01:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:01:43 ◼   ► I have two.

00:01:44 ◼   ► I actually, what I found out was that

00:01:46 ◼   ► the things that I like the most are

00:01:48 ◼   ► sitcom tags from production companies.

00:01:52 ◼   ► I enjoy those.

00:01:54 ◼   ► I thought of a couple of classics.

00:01:56 ◼   ► The Simpsons always ends with the Gracie films,

00:02:02 ◼   ► which I think is, is that James L. Brooks?

00:02:06 ◼   ► It's the Gracie films thing.

00:02:08 ◼   ► So it's doodle-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo,

00:02:10 ◼   ► followed by the 20th Century Fox logo.

00:02:12 ◼   ► So I always think about that one, the Gracie one.

00:02:14 ◼   ► And Sit, Ooboo, Sit, Good Dog,

00:02:18 ◼   ► which was the Gary David Goldberg title card

00:02:22 ◼   ► for family ties begin back in the day.

00:02:27 ◼   ► That was very memorable, a dog.

00:02:28 ◼   ► A dog, actually his, I think, dead dog.

00:02:30 ◼   ► And he had a picture of his dead dog.

00:02:33 ◼   ► He named Ubu Productions was named after his dog.

00:02:37 ◼   ► So those are classics.

00:02:38 ◼   ► And there are some modern ones

00:02:39 ◼   ► that I suppose are like that too.

00:02:41 ◼   ► And I'll throw in a runner up for back in the 90s, 2000s,

00:02:46 ◼   ► the CNN's bumper was James Earl Jones saying,

00:02:50 ◼   ► "This is CNN."

00:02:52 ◼   ► And there's nothing like Darth Vader

00:02:54 ◼   ► to snap you out of it.

00:02:56 ◼   ► Like, "Whoa, okay Darth Vader, I get it.

00:02:58 ◼   ► It's CNN, I get it."

00:02:59 ◼   ► Those are classics.

00:03:00 ◼   ► What about you?

00:03:01 ◼   ► You have anything?

00:03:02 ◼   ► - I mean, the HBO one is a classic to me.

00:03:05 ◼   ► 'Cause like so many of my favorite shows then start,

00:03:08 ◼   ► you know, like after that sound.

00:03:11 ◼   ► So I think that that one is a classic of mine, I think.

00:03:14 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a snow talk question

00:03:17 ◼   ► of your own, just go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send it in and we may help open

00:03:24 ◼   ► a future episode of Upgrade.

00:03:25 ◼   ► Got quite a bit of follow up today, Jason.

00:03:28 ◼   ► Oh.

00:03:29 ◼   ► A big chunk of it is in regards to carplay and General Motors.

00:03:34 ◼   ► So you wrote a blog post, sometimes will happen when we record an episode and you're like

00:03:40 ◼   ► fired up about a topic.

00:03:41 ◼   ► I talked about it a lot and realized I hadn't written a word about it and sometimes I had

00:03:45 ◼   ► that moment where I think to myself,

00:03:46 ◼   ► if I wasn't a podcast listener

00:03:48 ◼   ► and only read Jason's writing,

00:03:50 ◼   ► did I just skip over this entire topic

00:03:53 ◼   ► by only talking about it on podcasts?

00:03:55 ◼   ► And the answer sometimes is yes.

00:03:57 ◼   ► And so I try to make sure that those kind of get in sync.

00:04:01 ◼   ► So I did, I wrote what was going to be a brief link

00:04:04 ◼   ► to that Verge story that basically says,

00:04:06 ◼   ► everybody's mad about General Motors

00:04:08 ◼   ► saying they're gonna drop CarPlay.

00:04:10 ◼   ► And it did not turn into a brief link.

00:04:13 ◼   ► I was going to do the, like, look, I'm tired.

00:04:15 ◼   ► I'm not going to rant about it now.

00:04:17 ◼   ► And then I proceeded to rant about it.

00:04:19 ◼   ► And I was like, OK, well, I guess I did that again.

00:04:22 ◼   ► So we've got a lot of thoughts out there.

00:04:24 ◼   ► But we also had some stuff coming in from listeners.

00:04:26 ◼   ► So Matt wrote in and says, I have a Polestar 2, which

00:04:30 ◼   ► features an Android automotive.

00:04:32 ◼   ► They added CarPlay last summer.

00:04:34 ◼   ► I prefer the built-in Google Maps

00:04:36 ◼   ► because it's more EV-friendly, but use

00:04:38 ◼   ► CarPlay for everything else.

00:04:40 ◼   ► There are so few apps for automotive,

00:04:42 ◼   ► Chrome isn't even available.

00:04:44 ◼   ► And I found that interesting,

00:04:45 ◼   ► Polestar seemed to be doing it right.

00:04:47 ◼   ► And they got all of it,

00:04:48 ◼   ► a little bit of all of it in Polestar.

00:04:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I got a nice listener letter from Don,

00:04:55 ◼   ► who said something very similar,

00:04:57 ◼   ► which is Android Automotive Operating System

00:05:00 ◼   ► has deep integration with car systems.

00:05:02 ◼   ► It's much more than just Navin Entertainment.

00:05:04 ◼   ► It's got the climate control and other car stuff.

00:05:06 ◼   ► It's that low level stuff.

00:05:08 ◼   ► We receive regular over the air system updates,

00:05:12 ◼   ► and it brings more stability,

00:05:13 ◼   ► navigation is excellent.

00:05:14 ◼   ► And I'm sitting reading this thinking,

00:05:16 ◼   ► okay, this person really loves their Android Automotive.

00:05:19 ◼   ► But Don says, the kicker is,

00:05:23 ◼   ► CarPlay is always available as an app.

00:05:26 ◼   ► And frankly, it's a more robust implementation of CarPlay

00:05:29 ◼   ► than in our Chevy Bolt.

00:05:30 ◼   ► So the point here is Google certainly has an API for CarPlay

00:05:33 ◼   ► to be part of Android Auto Automotive.

00:05:36 ◼   ► The decision to not include it is GMs.

00:05:37 ◼   ► And I think that's great at getting at the point here.

00:05:41 ◼   ► which is there's nothing that precludes GM

00:05:44 ◼   ► from also offering people who have an iPhone

00:05:48 ◼   ► the opportunity to look at some of their stuff

00:05:50 ◼   ► through CarPlay while offering

00:05:53 ◼   ► a full featured Android automotive experience.

00:05:55 ◼   ► They just don't want to.

00:05:57 ◼   ► So I thought that was a great bit of feedback

00:06:00 ◼   ► from our listeners who have the Android automotive

00:06:03 ◼   ► experience with CarPlay, right?

00:06:05 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And it's competition, right?

00:06:07 ◼   ► That way, if GM is really lagging,

00:06:10 ◼   ► It's good for the user if you're like,

00:06:12 ◼   ► well, I got a brand new iPhone with brand new software

00:06:14 ◼   ► and it's got this great feature

00:06:15 ◼   ► and it's better than what's on my car,

00:06:16 ◼   ► so I'm gonna use that.

00:06:17 ◼   ► And GM doesn't wanna do that, right?

00:06:20 ◼   ► They don't wanna risk that there's gonna be things

00:06:22 ◼   ► outside of their control, which is infuriating.

00:06:27 ◼   ► - For any of the shows, Sam Edels-Somid wrote in

00:06:31 ◼   ► with a bunch of information about,

00:06:33 ◼   ► well, kind of follow up on what we were talking about,

00:06:35 ◼   ► Sam, who is a, I would say an expert--

00:06:39 ◼   ► - Auto industry analyst.

00:06:40 ◼   ► - Yes. - Yeah, on cars

00:06:42 ◼   ► and technology and how these two things

00:06:44 ◼   ► kind of intersect. - And he was on

00:06:45 ◼   ► the verticals last year, yeah.

00:06:47 ◼   ► - So he says, "In contrast," so like, you know,

00:06:50 ◼   ► I mentioned there was an article that I found

00:06:51 ◼   ► which had a list of car makers that were gonna be

00:06:54 ◼   ► integrating with the new CarPlay.

00:06:56 ◼   ► Sam says that no automaker themselves

00:06:59 ◼   ► has publicly committed to using the new CarPlay.

00:07:02 ◼   ► That list came from Apple, so.

00:07:06 ◼   ► I don't know, like, you know, I feel like

00:07:07 ◼   ► in the way that Sam was writing in was like,

00:07:09 ◼   ► "This is wrong."

00:07:10 ◼   ► And it's like, well, I feel like it's only half wrong.

00:07:12 ◼   ► Apple's saying it, so it's not like it's not being said,

00:07:15 ◼   ► but just the car companies aren't committing to it.

00:07:17 ◼   ► But Apple was saying that there's a list of 14 or 17

00:07:21 ◼   ► companies that will have the new carplay.

00:07:22 ◼   ► So unless they know, unless they think they know something

00:07:25 ◼   ► that's not gonna happen, I don't know what's gonna happen.

00:07:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I mean, the point is,

00:07:30 ◼   ► that was an announcement made last June,

00:07:32 ◼   ► have the car makers changed their minds?

00:07:34 ◼   ► We wouldn't know.

00:07:35 ◼   ► I imagined at the time that what that was is,

00:07:38 ◼   ► we're gonna tell you that these car makers support us,

00:07:40 ◼   ► but we're gonna let them announce their new cars

00:07:42 ◼   ► that support this feature.

00:07:44 ◼   ► And as Sam points out, that hasn't happened.

00:07:46 ◼   ► So you're ending up in this limbo state,

00:07:48 ◼   ► which is sort of like, are they going to still or not?

00:07:52 ◼   ► And we don't know.

00:07:54 ◼   ► So that's all we can tell.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Maybe there'll be an announcement at WWDC about it,

00:07:58 ◼   ► who knows?

00:07:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause like the other part of it is just maybe

00:08:00 ◼   ► Apple hasn't wanted anyone to talk about it yet,

00:08:02 ◼   ► 'cause they wanna show it off properly

00:08:04 ◼   ► when they're ready too, so who knows?

00:08:05 ◼   ► - Maybe so.

00:08:06 ◼   ► Sam also says, "The system in these vehicles,

00:08:09 ◼   ► so the GM vehicles, is Android,

00:08:12 ◼   ► and therefore the Play Store is present,

00:08:13 ◼   ► which means any Android developer can submit apps

00:08:16 ◼   ► that fall into the vehicle-appropriate categories,

00:08:19 ◼   ► like media streaming and messaging,

00:08:21 ◼   ► and they can appear in the Play Store on GM EVs."

00:08:25 ◼   ► So, you know, like CarPlay, in a way,

00:08:28 ◼   ► you can have an application

00:08:30 ◼   ► that can be kind of rubber-stamped

00:08:32 ◼   ► to be used in that environment,

00:08:35 ◼   ► and Android will do the same.

00:08:37 ◼   ► - You have to specifically, like with CarPlay,

00:08:39 ◼   ► you have to specifically have it be flagged

00:08:42 ◼   ► as being approved for automotive use.

00:08:45 ◼   ► And I don't know if it's a rubber stamp

00:08:47 ◼   ► or if there's actually some more attention paid to,

00:08:50 ◼   ► 'cause there's some liability, I think,

00:08:52 ◼   ► if something that just plays video,

00:08:54 ◼   ► like it's not legal.

00:08:57 ◼   ► So I think that there is some stuff

00:09:00 ◼   ► that they have to probably check before they allow it.

00:09:02 ◼   ► I don't know the details.

00:09:03 ◼   ► I don't know if they're just doing automated scan

00:09:04 ◼   ► if somebody has to actually approve those or what. This is good to know. I will point out, though,

00:09:10 ◼   ► that first off, it does actually have to be properly tagged as being something for automotive use.

00:09:15 ◼   ► Even if the app you use on your iPhone has an Android equivalent, is it in Android automotive?

00:09:22 ◼   ► Secondly, is the experience of using that app comparable to using it in CarPlay or is it not?

00:09:29 ◼   ► It's sort of an up in the air thing. And then I would anticipate, and this is just me inventing

00:09:34 ◼   ► something, but based on observations, I would also anticipate, I wonder if GM will exert a level of

00:09:43 ◼   ► authority over what is available to be installed on their cars, right? Because that's the other,

00:09:48 ◼   ► the way they're acting with something like saying, "Oh, no carplay. We're not going to allow that."

00:09:52 ◼   ► I don't know if there's anything to stop them from saying, "We're only going to let certain apps

00:09:58 ◼   ► be installed on our cars, right, from the Play Store.

00:10:03 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:10:04 ◼   ► I don't know if they're able to control

00:10:07 ◼   ► the Play Store experience, right?

00:10:09 ◼   ► I don't think phones can do this,

00:10:11 ◼   ► unless it just does, like, there's something

00:10:12 ◼   ► about the phone that doesn't support it.

00:10:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it's, the cars, right,

00:10:17 ◼   ► like, I just don't know if they can blacklist apps

00:10:21 ◼   ► on Android Automotive, I don't know.

00:10:24 ◼   ► - So on that Android developer site, I found you,

00:10:26 ◼   ► The app is reviewed for compliance with driver

00:10:28 ◼   ► distraction guidelines and the technical quality criteria

00:10:31 ◼   ► described in these sections.

00:10:33 ◼   ► So it's got a bunch of lists.

00:10:35 ◼   ► The detail review process might take more time

00:10:37 ◼   ► than you're accustomed to when submitting phone and tablet

00:10:39 ◼   ► apps until your app or update is approved, it's not published.

00:10:43 ◼   ► So unlike-- just to confirm what we thought--

00:10:46 ◼   ► kind of like CarPlay and unlike regular app review on Android,

00:10:51 ◼   ► if you want to be able to use the requirements

00:10:54 ◼   ► and you want to use the entitlements that are available

00:10:57 ◼   ► and the features that are available

00:10:58 ◼   ► to have your app in the car,

00:10:59 ◼   ► it does go through an additional approval process

00:11:02 ◼   ► to make sure that it's, as you say, not like,

00:11:04 ◼   ► "Hey, here's a video app to watch videos

00:11:08 ◼   ► when you're driving."

00:11:09 ◼   ► It's like, well, that's not gonna happen.

00:11:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:11:12 ◼   ► So the fact that I am really grateful to Sam

00:11:16 ◼   ► for sending this feedback.

00:11:17 ◼   ► The fact that in theory,

00:11:20 ◼   ► Android apps that have essentially

00:11:23 ◼   ► would display like Android Auto apps,

00:11:25 ◼   ► but they're running on the Android automotive platform

00:11:27 ◼   ► and in the Play Store and all that.

00:11:29 ◼   ► That's great.

00:11:30 ◼   ► It depends on GM's implementation.

00:11:31 ◼   ► And then it doesn't actually change my argument

00:11:33 ◼   ► in a lot of ways, because while you might rely on an app

00:11:37 ◼   ► that has an Android equivalent,

00:11:39 ◼   ► that is flagged properly and allowed on GM's hardware,

00:11:43 ◼   ► and therefore you can put it on the GM hardware platform.

00:11:47 ◼   ► Like that's a lot of steps,

00:11:48 ◼   ► but it's gonna happen for a lot of stuff and that's great.

00:11:52 ◼   ► But my larger point was also,

00:11:54 ◼   ► like I certainly use, at least with Overcast,

00:11:57 ◼   ► the podcast player, one app that will never be on Android.

00:12:00 ◼   ► And so for me, CarPlay means I can have my podcast app

00:12:05 ◼   ► on my car, and this decision means I can't.

00:12:09 ◼   ► And that's the car maker saying,

00:12:11 ◼   ► "You need to change everything

00:12:13 ◼   ► "about how you live your life, right,

00:12:16 ◼   ► "in order to be compatible with our car."

00:12:19 ◼   ► And like, that's a power move.

00:12:21 ◼   ► And I'm completely open to the idea that while Apple talks about 79% of people saying car

00:12:27 ◼   ► play has to be on their new car that they buy, of new car buyers, I'm also open to the

00:12:33 ◼   ► idea that General Motors looks at that and goes, "It's soft. It's soft. In the end, if

00:12:38 ◼   ► they want to buy our car, they're not going to care. We're going to show that we have

00:12:40 ◼   ► an equivalent infotated system. It'll be good enough." But will it be good enough? I don't

00:12:45 ◼   ► know. I look at this and I think, as we saw from our previous commenters about people

00:12:51 ◼   ► who have Android automotive cars, like they could also just say, "Look, if you want to

00:12:57 ◼   ► use overcast, sure, use CarPlay for that." And they're like, "No, no, we don't want anything

00:13:01 ◼   ► on our system from your iPhone." And that's the part that infuriates me. So we'll see

00:13:07 ◼   ► how it plays out, right? Like either it'll matter or it won't, right? In the end, either

00:13:11 ◼   ► people will be like, "I don't like this. I'm gonna avoid GM cars because of this and the

00:13:18 ◼   ► GM sales are gonna be a problem and their salespeople are gonna be like this lack of

00:13:21 ◼   ► carplay is killing us, or it won't matter. Those of us who do care will just have to

00:13:28 ◼   ► try and avoid the cars that don't have carplay, which is what's happening now. I heard from

00:13:33 ◼   ► a lot of people who are like, "I'm never going back to a car without carplay." I get it.

00:13:40 ◼   ► That's potentially a problem for GM if it turns out that people are… At the end of

00:13:45 ◼   ► this, I didn't write this. I haven't said this anywhere, but I think in the end what

00:13:49 ◼   ► my point really is, if I want to boil it down, is what are people more loyal to? The software

00:13:55 ◼   ► running in their car or the iPhone in their pocket? Like, what are they more loyal to?

00:14:01 ◼   ► And I think the only person who believes they're more loyal to the software in their car is

00:14:06 ◼   ► the car maker.

00:14:07 ◼   ► I don't even know if it's the software part either as well, right? Like, I think that

00:14:10 ◼   ► people like car brands, but I think for the average consumer, is there that much differentiation

00:14:16 ◼   ► between car A and car B. If you want to get a hatchback or whatever, I think unless you're

00:14:22 ◼   ► really into cars, you just drive a bunch to find one that you like. I don't know, I mean,

00:14:29 ◼   ► I'm not a car person, but I don't know if the typical car buyer has an affinity towards

00:14:38 ◼   ► a brand, like a strong one. Do you think that's the case?

00:14:43 ◼   ► I think it varies.

00:14:45 ◼   ► I think it varies.

00:14:46 ◼   ► I think most people know, right?

00:14:48 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:14:49 ◼   ► 'Cause I feel like that's where you're gonna end up

00:14:50 ◼   ► in a problem, right?

00:14:52 ◼   ► I wanted to give a kind of a clarification of terms,

00:14:55 ◼   ► which I found helpful, so about Android Automotive.

00:14:59 ◼   ► So Android Auto is CarPlay.

00:15:03 ◼   ► So it is a platform that runs on your phone

00:15:06 ◼   ► and extends to the car, right? - And projects, exactly.

00:15:08 ◼   ► Android Automotive is effectively Android,

00:15:13 ◼   ► the open source project.

00:15:16 ◼   ► So like what Android the open source project is to phones,

00:15:19 ◼   ► Automotive is to cars.

00:15:20 ◼   ► Like it is a operating system.

00:15:22 ◼   ► - The car is the phone, right?

00:15:24 ◼   ► It's running on the car, not projected into the car.

00:15:27 ◼   ► It's Android running on the car.

00:15:30 ◼   ► - But like Android is for a phone,

00:15:33 ◼   ► you can use Android Automotive

00:15:36 ◼   ► and have no Google stuff on it.

00:15:38 ◼   ► no Play Store or anything.

00:15:40 ◼   ► That is Google Automotive Services,

00:15:43 ◼   ► which is a different layer on top,

00:15:45 ◼   ► which is like Google Play Services for a fun.

00:15:48 ◼   ► So.

00:15:51 ◼   ► - Right, and it allows the automakers

00:15:53 ◼   ► to use the basis of Android Automotive

00:15:56 ◼   ► and tie it into their systems and all that.

00:15:58 ◼   ► This was the question about like next-gen CarPlay is,

00:16:00 ◼   ► what's Apple doing with next-gen CarPlay?

00:16:02 ◼   ► Is that a version of iOS that's running on the car

00:16:08 ◼   ► all the time.

00:16:09 ◼   ► And when I talked to Sam last summer about it,

00:16:12 ◼   ► he said, "I can't see it."

00:16:13 ◼   ► He's like, "I really can't see that."

00:16:15 ◼   ► Because what you have to do is build

00:16:17 ◼   ► a car real-time operating system,

00:16:19 ◼   ► and is Apple really gonna do that?

00:16:21 ◼   ► But that's what Android Automotive is, right?

00:16:24 ◼   ► Android has been set up, and Google has set it up,

00:16:28 ◼   ► to say, "Yeah, we wanna be the basis for your car OS."

00:16:32 ◼   ► Which is fine, right?

00:16:33 ◼   ► Like, that's cool, because if you're GM,

00:16:35 ◼   ► or Polestar, or whoever, you're like,

00:16:37 ◼   ► "Well, this is good.

00:16:38 ◼   ► "We don't have to build our own operating system

00:16:39 ◼   ► "and we get an app platform with it and that's nice.

00:16:42 ◼   ► "And then we can put CarPlay and Android Auto on top of it."

00:16:45 ◼   ► So we've got our fundamental like in the car stuff

00:16:48 ◼   ► and then the things people can project from their phones

00:16:50 ◼   ► that they carry around with them.

00:16:52 ◼   ► It's just the GM chose to not make that last step

00:16:55 ◼   ► and say, "No, we're not gonna do that.

00:16:56 ◼   ► "We're gonna close that door."

00:16:58 ◼   ► And what I've realized in all their statements

00:17:01 ◼   ► is they keep, it's such deflection.

00:17:04 ◼   ► I mean, in my piece on six colors,

00:17:05 ◼   ► I basically said they're lying, right?

00:17:07 ◼   ► its spin, its lies.

00:17:09 ◼   ► What they keep saying is,

00:17:10 ◼   ► "Well, we have to do it because of this and this."

00:17:13 ◼   ► But they don't have to do it.

00:17:14 ◼   ► They're using those as excuses.

00:17:16 ◼   ► They've chosen a platform

00:17:18 ◼   ► that fundamentally can allow projection,

00:17:20 ◼   ► as well as allowing everything that they want.

00:17:22 ◼   ► They just don't want projection

00:17:24 ◼   ► because what are they afraid of?

00:17:26 ◼   ► They're afraid of losing control of their platform

00:17:29 ◼   ► and letting people make choices

00:17:31 ◼   ► that aren't the choices that GM wants to make.

00:17:33 ◼   ► And I would argue that the navigation part of it

00:17:37 ◼   ► that GM is so hot on,

00:17:38 ◼   ► like, well, we're gonna have self-driving cars

00:17:39 ◼   ► or driver assist, and we need to know where you're going,

00:17:41 ◼   ► so you need to use our navigation.

00:17:43 ◼   ► It's like, well, that's the carrot, right?

00:17:44 ◼   ► That's the reason that you are going to motivate people

00:17:49 ◼   ► to use the in-car navigation system

00:17:51 ◼   ► is that if you wanna use all the advanced features of the car

00:17:53 ◼   ► you gotta use the in-car navigation system.

00:17:55 ◼   ► That's fine.

00:17:57 ◼   ► But the way they're acting

00:17:59 ◼   ► is more that they're just fearful.

00:18:01 ◼   ► And it leads me to think that the truth

00:18:03 ◼   ► is not about that at all.

00:18:05 ◼   ► The truth of it is they want to limit what's on the car

00:18:09 ◼   ► so that you have to use the services that they approve

00:18:13 ◼   ► and probably have to pay them

00:18:15 ◼   ► or the services have to pay them for access to GM cars.

00:18:19 ◼   ► I think that's really what's going on here in the end

00:18:22 ◼   ► is that it's not this sham about navigation.

00:18:27 ◼   ► The truth is it's about like what other things

00:18:29 ◼   ► are on your phone.

00:18:30 ◼   ► And the answer is, well, it's like music and podcasts.

00:18:34 ◼   ► And they're like, well, yeah, they don't want that.

00:18:36 ◼   ► They want you to pay for their connectivity

00:18:39 ◼   ► and pay for, maybe they only have Spotify on there

00:18:42 ◼   ► and they've cut a deal with Spotify

00:18:44 ◼   ► or they dream of cutting a deal with Spotify

00:18:46 ◼   ► to allow Spotify to be pre-installed on their cars.

00:18:51 ◼   ► And they get a cut for that.

00:18:53 ◼   ► And I think that that's their big strategy

00:18:55 ◼   ► is we're gonna use the exclusivity of our platform

00:18:58 ◼   ► as a lever to pull money out of our customers

00:19:03 ◼   ► after they buy the car, either directly or indirectly.

00:19:07 ◼   ► I think that's what's going on,

00:19:09 ◼   ► despite everything they say.

00:19:10 ◼   ► 'Cause everything they say makes no sense.

00:19:12 ◼   ► Like none of GM's justifications for this move hold water.

00:19:17 ◼   ► They are all, I mean, that's why I say it.

00:19:20 ◼   ► They're lies, they're lying.

00:19:22 ◼   ► They are lying because having Apple Maps on your phone

00:19:25 ◼   ► doesn't preclude their navigation system

00:19:27 ◼   ► from being required for using their features.

00:19:30 ◼   ► It doesn't, but they say it does.

00:19:33 ◼   ► Why is that?

00:19:34 ◼   ► It's because they're lying

00:19:35 ◼   ► because they have a grander strategy at work

00:19:37 ◼   ► which involves taking complete control

00:19:39 ◼   ► over the software platform of their cars

00:19:41 ◼   ► and not letting anyone else on board.

00:19:43 ◼   ► Good luck.

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00:21:55 ◼   ► So should we do some follow up now?

00:21:57 ◼   ► Okay, I mean continuing the follow up.

00:22:01 ◼   ► I feel like that was its own topic, that became topic number 1 and now we're going to follow

00:22:05 ◼   ► up.

00:22:06 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:07 ◼   ► So Stefan wrote in to say, "Regarding a revamped watch user interface, Jason mentioned

00:22:12 ◼   ► at the end of your discussion that a new watch UI

00:22:15 ◼   ► or something that he would like to see

00:22:17 ◼   ► is a currently running timer interface

00:22:19 ◼   ► if you set a 15 minute timer or whatever

00:22:21 ◼   ► to actually see it running all the time.

00:22:23 ◼   ► This sounds a lot like the use of the dynamic island.

00:22:26 ◼   ► Maybe a revamped watch UI could center

00:22:29 ◼   ► around dynamic island concepts for the watch face.

00:22:33 ◼   ► Curious to hear if that gives you any additional thoughts.

00:22:36 ◼   ► It's live activities, right?

00:22:38 ◼   ► Can they do something? - Yeah, I mean,

00:22:40 ◼   ► live activities watch face?

00:22:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:43 ◼   ► Maybe?

00:22:44 ◼   ► Kind of like the Siri watch face.

00:22:46 ◼   ► I always feel like that was something that Apple didn't fully express.

00:22:50 ◼   ► Right.

00:22:52 ◼   ► Which was a frustration for me.

00:22:53 ◼   ► I was actually a fan of the Siri watch face.

00:22:55 ◼   ► What I liked about the Siri watch face was it made the Apple watch feel like a

00:23:01 ◼   ► computer like it is because it felt like it was surfacing things for me, which

00:23:07 ◼   ► were relevant at a certain time.

00:23:10 ◼   ► Right?

00:23:11 ◼   ► So if I had an appointment coming up,

00:23:13 ◼   ► it would show me that.

00:23:15 ◼   ► And so complications are great and all,

00:23:17 ◼   ► but they're very static in a way.

00:23:19 ◼   ► I think we were talking about this,

00:23:22 ◼   ► kind of more dynamic complications.

00:23:25 ◼   ► For example, I have the fantastic hell complication

00:23:28 ◼   ► on my watch, but I only really need it a few hours a day

00:23:32 ◼   ► when I've got appointments going on.

00:23:33 ◼   ► In the evening, when it's, I'm not gonna have anything

00:23:37 ◼   ► for another, say, 12 hours or whatever,

00:23:39 ◼   ► I don't need that there anymore, that complication.

00:23:42 ◼   ► It's still like so much of watchOS

00:23:45 ◼   ► feels like it's stuck in this idea of like being a watch.

00:23:50 ◼   ► - The lack of dynamism in the individual.

00:23:52 ◼   ► So like, yeah, you can create a complication that's got,

00:23:55 ◼   ► that's dynamic,

00:23:56 ◼   ► but the complication slot itself isn't dynamic.

00:23:58 ◼   ► The complication slot is whatever is in it.

00:24:00 ◼   ► And we've seen like, you know, Widget Smith,

00:24:04 ◼   ► or Watch Smith experiments with this.

00:24:06 ◼   ► The idea that the data that goes in your complications

00:24:08 ◼   ► changes depending on context.

00:24:11 ◼   ► You can do shortcuts that do things like change your,

00:24:14 ◼   ► which face is open at a particular time.

00:24:17 ◼   ► That's clever.

00:24:18 ◼   ► But what would really be clever is Apple thinking about this

00:24:22 ◼   ► from the top down and saying,

00:24:25 ◼   ► "How do we solve this problem on a level that isn't sort of

00:24:28 ◼   ► like a hack, but like is built into the watch?"

00:24:33 ◼   ► Because what I, so, and what I mean by that is,

00:24:38 ◼   ► Imagine something like WatchSmith,

00:24:42 ◼   ► which for people who haven't used it, has a little clock.

00:24:45 ◼   ► And you basically can draw out different segments

00:24:47 ◼   ► of the clock and say, show this data here

00:24:51 ◼   ► and show this data here.

00:24:52 ◼   ► And it's very clever because it means like

00:24:54 ◼   ► during the workday, it shows this kind of data

00:24:57 ◼   ► in its complication slot.

00:24:59 ◼   ► And the rest of the time it shows this other kind of

00:25:00 ◼   ► complex or data in the complications.

00:25:03 ◼   ► Okay, great.

00:25:04 ◼   ► But compare, so if you're Apple, you're like,

00:25:06 ◼   ► do we really want people to do that?

00:25:08 ◼   ► To have like this clock, you know, we appreciate,

00:25:11 ◼   ► I'm sure this theoretical Apple person,

00:25:13 ◼   ► what David Smith has done with WatchSmith,

00:25:15 ◼   ► but is that the UI we wanna give people or we're Apple,

00:25:19 ◼   ► we can do better than that.

00:25:20 ◼   ► We're gonna do, we're gonna reconceive it.

00:25:22 ◼   ► - Siri intelligence.

00:25:23 ◼   ► - And that's, well, so what I was thinking is,

00:25:26 ◼   ► we're talking about the live activities

00:25:27 ◼   ► in the dynamic island and things like that.

00:25:30 ◼   ► Like I could see Apple saying,

00:25:31 ◼   ► what we're gonna do is we're gonna create

00:25:35 ◼   ► a dynamic complication that has a base complication mode

00:25:40 ◼   ► that you select, but that in certain contexts,

00:25:45 ◼   ► it's replaced by the dynamic complication.

00:25:49 ◼   ► And if there's a series of them,

00:25:50 ◼   ► you can swipe between them.

00:25:52 ◼   ► And like, I'm making this up off the top of my head,

00:25:53 ◼   ► but you could see Apple doing something like that,

00:25:55 ◼   ► which is, "Oh, no, no, no, we're not gonna have you say,

00:25:58 ◼   ► 'From nine to five, show this,

00:25:59 ◼   ► and then otherwise show that.'

00:26:01 ◼   ► That's not what we're gonna do.

00:26:02 ◼   ► Instead, we're gonna create a developer API,

00:26:04 ◼   ► and we're gonna build a new class of complication,

00:26:07 ◼   ► and it's gonna have a base state,

00:26:09 ◼   ► and then the developers will be able to insert theirs

00:26:12 ◼   ► contextually based on certain data

00:26:14 ◼   ► that'll be from their apps pushed in

00:26:16 ◼   ► to the same complication spot on this one watch face

00:26:19 ◼   ► that we're enabling it for, right?

00:26:21 ◼   ► That sounds much more like how Apple approaches this.

00:26:23 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's the right decision.

00:26:25 ◼   ► I'm saying that that sounds like something Apple might do.

00:26:27 ◼   ► And they've already got the Live Activity concept

00:26:30 ◼   ► and the Dynamic Island concept.

00:26:32 ◼   ► So taking that dynamism and existing APIs basically

00:26:36 ◼   ► and saying, okay, here's a dynamic complication spot,

00:26:40 ◼   ► which is not necessarily what I want,

00:26:42 ◼   ► which is, can I just, you know,

00:26:44 ◼   ► but it might have the same effect,

00:26:46 ◼   ► which is I leave that dynamic complication spot open

00:26:48 ◼   ► and when I am running a timer,

00:26:50 ◼   ► the timer shows up in it, right?

00:26:51 ◼   ► Like, okay, that is actually kind of,

00:26:54 ◼   ► you're giving me what I want,

00:26:56 ◼   ► but not exactly the way that I wanted it.

00:26:59 ◼   ► I told you I wanted it.

00:27:00 ◼   ► And that's not wrong.

00:27:02 ◼   ► You can tell an artist, draw,

00:27:06 ◼   ► I want this person to be blue

00:27:09 ◼   ► and this person to be green and have an angry expression.

00:27:12 ◼   ► Or you say, just draw me the picture

00:27:14 ◼   ► and here's what the picture is.

00:27:16 ◼   ► And micromanaging them, you're destroying

00:27:19 ◼   ► the thing that makes them the artist and you not the artist.

00:27:22 ◼   ► And this in user interface,

00:27:24 ◼   ► this is a similar kind of thing where it's like,

00:27:25 ◼   ► I just wanna be able to have this timer go in this slot

00:27:29 ◼   ► Sometimes, and Apple's like, yeah,

00:27:31 ◼   ► but what you really want is in the sort of step back

00:27:33 ◼   ► and then build the whole API around it.

00:27:35 ◼   ► So I think it's an interesting idea.

00:27:37 ◼   ► - So you have also experienced Friday night baseball.

00:27:41 ◼   ► So we were talking on a previous episode that the radio,

00:27:44 ◼   ► the local radio broadcast could now be piped

00:27:48 ◼   ► into Friday night baseball and the season has begun.

00:27:52 ◼   ► The balls have been rolled out from the gates

00:27:53 ◼   ► and we're off to go off with the races.

00:27:55 ◼   ► - They opened the gates.

00:27:56 ◼   ► How was your experience with this?

00:27:59 ◼   ► I assume you, did you do this as a tester?

00:28:01 ◼   ► Is this what you want from Friday Night Baseball

00:28:04 ◼   ► to listen to the local announcers?

00:28:05 ◼   ► - I mean, if it's my local team, I probably would.

00:28:09 ◼   ► So there's the two biggest complaints

00:28:10 ◼   ► about Friday Night Baseball.

00:28:12 ◼   ► One is you gotta be now an Apple TV.

00:28:14 ◼   ► It used to be you had to use Apple TV to watch the games.

00:28:19 ◼   ► And this year it's turned into you have to pay

00:28:21 ◼   ► for Apple TV Plus to watch the games, right?

00:28:24 ◼   ► The number two complaint though is

00:28:26 ◼   ► Who are these announcers, right?

00:28:27 ◼   ► Because so many fans are fans of a local team.

00:28:29 ◼   ► They are living with their local announcers day in, day out

00:28:32 ◼   ► for the whole summer.

00:28:33 ◼   ► 162 games of baseball.

00:28:37 ◼   ► It's a lot of baseball.

00:28:38 ◼   ► You're used to those people.

00:28:39 ◼   ► And then you get a national broadcast

00:28:42 ◼   ► and they're not your announcers.

00:28:43 ◼   ► There are other announcers who cover lots of different teams

00:28:46 ◼   ► and move from place to place.

00:28:48 ◼   ► And I hear from a lot of people who are like,

00:28:49 ◼   ► "Oh, those announcers are so bad."

00:28:51 ◼   ► It's like, you know, are they?

00:28:53 ◼   ► Are they especially bad?

00:28:54 ◼   ► I think they aren't personally. I think it's that you expect your local announcers.

00:28:59 ◼   ► Bottom line. It's not like, yes, they're not necessarily great, but I think the state of

00:29:04 ◼   ► national baseball announcing is not particularly great in general. So anyway, leaving that aside,

00:29:09 ◼   ► now you have this feature where you can switch over just as you could already on MLB TV,

00:29:17 ◼   ► their TV package, the MLB app let you switch to other audio and you could watch,

00:29:22 ◼   ► you actually watch your home team's TV and then switch it to your home team's radio for the audio,

00:29:26 ◼   ► which is kind of funny. But here with Apple, what they're doing is exactly what they're doing with

00:29:30 ◼   ► MLS actually, which is they're letting you overlay the national broadcasters with your local radio.

00:29:35 ◼   ► So on Friday, it was the first Friday Night Baseball, and I tried it out. There was a Cubs

00:29:40 ◼   ► Rangers game. The Rangers, strangely, are the one team that does not offer road radio. I don't know

00:29:45 ◼   ► why, but the Cubs radio was available and I was able to flip over. And then in the second game,

00:29:50 ◼   ► it was Atlanta and the Padres, and you could choose from the Atlanta or San Diego radio

00:29:56 ◼   ► broadcast. They're synced perfectly. I think what's going on is that Apple is actually

00:30:00 ◼   ► taking a feed of just the announcers and then underlaying their stadium audio so that the

00:30:08 ◼   ► crack of the bat is actually coming from their stadium audio and is perfectly aligned with

00:30:15 ◼   ► the video, but it may be that it may not,

00:30:18 ◼   ► I'm not a hundred percent sure on that,

00:30:20 ◼   ► but whatever it is, it's not out of sync or weird,

00:30:23 ◼   ► and they fade it out at the end of the inning

00:30:25 ◼   ► before they go to the commercial break on the radio,

00:30:27 ◼   ► they fade it out.

00:30:28 ◼   ► So you, you know, if the TV stays a little longer,

00:30:30 ◼   ► you got the stadium noise in the background,

00:30:32 ◼   ► sort of like with silence,

00:30:33 ◼   ► and then it goes to their local,

00:30:34 ◼   ► or it goes to their TV ads.

00:30:36 ◼   ► And then it comes back the same thing

00:30:38 ◼   ► if it needs to fade it in.

00:30:40 ◼   ► It's really, really, really well done.

00:30:42 ◼   ► So if people were wondering,

00:30:44 ◼   ► It means that if you want to experience

00:30:46 ◼   ► your local broadcasters on a Friday night baseball game,

00:30:49 ◼   ► you will still get the very good looking picture

00:30:53 ◼   ► that Apple is providing, and you can have your local audio,

00:30:57 ◼   ► and it sounds good.

00:30:58 ◼   ► - So I'm intrigued about this from a technical perspective.

00:31:04 ◼   ► She said there's no delay.

00:31:07 ◼   ► - No delay.

00:31:07 ◼   ► - So how are they managing that?

00:31:09 ◼   ► - Right, well, so my theory, and I would love,

00:31:12 ◼   ► I should probably ask somebody at Apple,

00:31:14 ◼   ► maybe they can actually walk me through it.

00:31:15 ◼   ► - Or if someone knows. - That would be fun.

00:31:17 ◼   ► - Please write to us and let us know.

00:31:19 ◼   ► But like how are they managing that?

00:31:20 ◼   ► - But I put up PR contact for this.

00:31:22 ◼   ► My guess is that they are taking the audio

00:31:25 ◼   ► out of the radio booth at the stadium.

00:31:29 ◼   ► That there is a feed that's coming out of the stadium

00:31:35 ◼   ► of the audio for the home and away radio.

00:31:38 ◼   ► And that they are taking that into their,

00:31:41 ◼   ► consuming that and putting it into their TV truck.

00:31:45 ◼   ► So it's as if they've got three different sets of announcers.

00:31:50 ◼   ► That's my guess.

00:31:51 ◼   ► - So I guess my question is then,

00:31:54 ◼   ► 'cause again, I don't know enough about this,

00:31:56 ◼   ► these announcers, they're at the stadium, right?

00:31:59 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:32:00 ◼   ► - Okay, so they're just, you reckon, okay, see,

00:32:03 ◼   ► I don't know why for some reason I was imagining

00:32:04 ◼   ► they might not be there.

00:32:05 ◼   ► I don't know why I would have thought that.

00:32:07 ◼   ► - Well, this is the funny thing though.

00:32:09 ◼   ► They're not always all there.

00:32:11 ◼   ► And the angels, I think, are not even sending

00:32:14 ◼   ► their announcers around.

00:32:16 ◼   ► They're doing it all remotely.

00:32:17 ◼   ► - I see, that's what I don't understand then.

00:32:19 ◼   ► Like if they're not there, 'cause if they're there,

00:32:21 ◼   ► it's like, oh, it's just like having any announcers.

00:32:24 ◼   ► - So the other option here is that MLB,

00:32:26 ◼   ► so MLB TV, like I said, also does this.

00:32:29 ◼   ► So the other possibility is that there is a place somewhere

00:32:36 ◼   ► where they are taking the feed from Apple

00:32:39 ◼   ► and they're taking the feed from the TV

00:32:42 ◼   ► or from the radio stuff that's coming in

00:32:45 ◼   ► and they're mixing it somewhere

00:32:46 ◼   ► and then that is what's going out.

00:32:48 ◼   ► They're almost like overlaying the other two audio streams

00:32:52 ◼   ► and then sending it on to the CDN.

00:32:54 ◼   ► And then in that case,

00:32:55 ◼   ► they're using Major League Baseball's infrastructure

00:32:58 ◼   ► that they've already built up for MLB TV.

00:33:00 ◼   ► And they're essentially just sort of like making it,

00:33:04 ◼   ► having it be Apple and then the other two.

00:33:06 ◼   ► and then it's going out.

00:33:07 ◼   ► And maybe that's what this is,

00:33:09 ◼   ► is maybe they're really using

00:33:10 ◼   ► the existing MLB TV infrastructure for this.

00:33:14 ◼   ► What impresses me is that it is synced, right?

00:33:17 ◼   ► Because it means that if there's any delay,

00:33:20 ◼   ► like they either have to delay,

00:33:22 ◼   ► like if one of them is ahead, they have to delay it

00:33:25 ◼   ► and then get them to match.

00:33:28 ◼   ► And that takes some calibration, which, you know,

00:33:30 ◼   ► it's their job and they do that before the game.

00:33:33 ◼   ► But whatever they're doing, it's solid.

00:33:36 ◼   ► Like it's not a second ahead or a second behind or something like that,

00:33:40 ◼   ► which often happens if you're like tuning it in on the radio and setting your radio

00:33:45 ◼   ► on your coffee table while you turn the volume down on the TV sync is all out of

00:33:49 ◼   ► whack for that, but it's not out of whack on Friday night baseball.

00:33:53 ◼   ► So I, I, I, I don't know what they're doing there, but given the angels

00:33:57 ◼   ► broadcasters, actually, it may very well be that they're just running it through

00:34:02 ◼   ► Major League Baseball's own platform for this,

00:34:07 ◼   ► and then out to Apple instead of out to their app.

00:34:11 ◼   ► - Ridley Scott's Napoleon movie,

00:34:13 ◼   ► which is a movie I didn't know,

00:34:14 ◼   ► I keep getting surprised at the breadth

00:34:18 ◼   ► of Apple's content right now.

00:34:20 ◼   ► They have a show that I wanna watch,

00:34:22 ◼   ► it's called "Monster Factory,"

00:34:24 ◼   ► and it's about a group of aspiring professional wrestlers,

00:34:28 ◼   ► like it's an actual documentary series,

00:34:31 ◼   ► which speaks to me, and they've got a movie

00:34:35 ◼   ► about Michael J. Fox's life called Still,

00:34:40 ◼   ► which is coming soon, which looks awesome,

00:34:42 ◼   ► like I saw a trailer for that.

00:34:44 ◼   ► The funny thing is I am finding out about these shows

00:34:47 ◼   ► from my YouTube recommendations.

00:34:50 ◼   ► I keep getting recommended trailers for Apple shows.

00:34:53 ◼   ► That's how I'm finding out about new content on Apple TV+.

00:34:58 ◼   ► But this is a movie about Napoleon,

00:35:01 ◼   ► starring Joaquin Phoenix, directed by Ridley Scott.

00:35:04 ◼   ► It's going to be on Apple TV+,

00:35:07 ◼   ► but first it will be shown in theaters.

00:35:11 ◼   ► For this movie, Apple has chosen to work

00:35:14 ◼   ► with Sony Pictures Entertainment to handle the distribution,

00:35:17 ◼   ► and it's going to be the first movie

00:35:19 ◼   ► that is distributed under this new plan that Apple has

00:35:22 ◼   ► that we were talking about recently,

00:35:24 ◼   ► to put movies in theaters.

00:35:26 ◼   ► this is the first one that they've confirmed at least,

00:35:28 ◼   ► will be put in theaters with the help

00:35:30 ◼   ► of a third-party production company.

00:35:32 ◼   ► - Right, this is, in the long run,

00:35:34 ◼   ► Apple is planning on having all,

00:35:38 ◼   ► most of their originals have a theatrical release,

00:35:41 ◼   ► or at least some of them.

00:35:42 ◼   ► And so here is one.

00:35:44 ◼   ► And the first ones we see, a lot of those are gonna be

00:35:47 ◼   ► that they agreed for theatrical to close the deal.

00:35:50 ◼   ► Martin Scorsese is the best example of that,

00:35:53 ◼   ► were like, they needed to guarantee him a theatrical release

00:35:56 ◼   ► or he wasn't gonna make the deal.

00:35:58 ◼   ► And so they did that.

00:35:59 ◼   ► But in the long run, they're gonna do this as policy

00:36:01 ◼   ► because of what we said before,

00:36:03 ◼   ► the shorthand version is marketing something

00:36:05 ◼   ► in theatrical benefits in terms of people being aware of it.

00:36:09 ◼   ► That's good for when it comes on Apple TV Plus,

00:36:12 ◼   ► and they can make some money from theatrical.

00:36:14 ◼   ► So that's good too.

00:36:16 ◼   ► So there's lots of reasons that streamers

00:36:18 ◼   ► that aren't Netflix are trying this.

00:36:20 ◼   ► - And bit of information for you, Jason,

00:36:22 ◼   ► Apple will be announcing its Q2 2023 earnings on May the 4th.

00:36:27 ◼   ► - May the 4th be with you, Mike.

00:36:29 ◼   ► - They're gonna feel the force

00:36:30 ◼   ► and they're gonna announce their earnings.

00:36:32 ◼   ► - They're gonna feel the 4th.

00:36:34 ◼   ► So everybody will be there, they'll be wearing costumes.

00:36:36 ◼   ► Tim Cook's gonna have the Han Solo outfit on, I think,

00:36:40 ◼   ► a little vest, a little leather vest.

00:36:42 ◼   ► And in the annual question or the quarterly question,

00:36:46 ◼   ► how did Jason learn when the earnings call was going to be?

00:36:50 ◼   ► my very professional planning system

00:36:53 ◼   ► where I place a calendar event early in the month

00:36:57 ◼   ► saying check for when the Apple financials are,

00:37:00 ◼   ► succeeded, it was last week, it was last Thursday,

00:37:04 ◼   ► I am on my calendar called check for Apple financials.

00:37:09 ◼   ► And I went to investor.apple.com and found the date.

00:37:15 ◼   ► So I win this one.

00:37:17 ◼   ► - Excellent.

00:37:18 ◼   ► Well, I'm happy that you're already new.

00:37:19 ◼   ► Anyway, look forward, everybody out there,

00:37:21 ◼   ► just an alert for Upgradients that on May the 8th,

00:37:26 ◼   ► whoo. - Money time.

00:37:28 ◼   ► - That's gonna be good stuff.

00:37:30 ◼   ► It's gonna be chart palooza.

00:37:33 ◼   ► - Did they hype this one up at all

00:37:35 ◼   ► or were they still like trying to be like,

00:37:37 ◼   ► whoa, it's gonna be bad?

00:37:40 ◼   ► - No, this is gonna be bad, it's gonna be bad.

00:37:42 ◼   ► It's gonna have weak max sales

00:37:44 ◼   ► and it's gonna be, it's not gonna be great.

00:37:45 ◼   ► This is, at least the thought is,

00:37:48 ◼   ► this is gonna be another rough one.

00:37:50 ◼   ► And that they said it's gonna be another rough one

00:37:53 ◼   ► when they did their last one. - They said that?

00:37:54 ◼   ► Okay. - So yeah.

00:37:56 ◼   ► Although again, rough for Apple.

00:37:58 ◼   ► - It's one of those good bad problems for them typically.

00:38:05 ◼   ► - It's good bad.

00:38:06 ◼   ► It's not a result you kind of like, but it's good bad.

00:38:09 ◼   ► It's not bad bad.

00:38:11 ◼   ► It's good bad. - Yeah, I like it.

00:38:12 ◼   ► - We should do that.

00:38:13 ◼   ► From now on, we should rate every quarter at Apple

00:38:15 ◼   ► based on flophouse recommendation levels.

00:38:18 ◼   ► So was it a good quarter, a bad quarter,

00:38:21 ◼   ► or a quarter you kind of liked?

00:38:23 ◼   ► - Well, we could try and judge that

00:38:25 ◼   ► based on Tim and Luca's comments.

00:38:27 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:38:28 ◼   ► - This episode is brought to you by Uni Pizza Ovens,

00:38:32 ◼   ► the world's number one pizza oven company.

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00:38:40 ◼   ► wood, charcoal, or gas.

00:38:42 ◼   ► They even have some models like the Unikaru,

00:38:45 ◼   ► which can use wood, charcoal or gas.

00:38:47 ◼   ► And let me also say, by the way,

00:38:49 ◼   ► they have a new electric pizza oven at Ooni.

00:38:53 ◼   ► It's called the Vault.

00:38:54 ◼   ► This thing looks amazing.

00:38:57 ◼   ► And it can be used indoor and outdoor.

00:39:01 ◼   ► This thing is super cool.

00:39:03 ◼   ► I've got my eye on one,

00:39:05 ◼   ► although I think I want to get a new one for our outdoors,

00:39:08 ◼   ► but the Ooni Vault looks super cool.

00:39:11 ◼   ► It's an electric pizza oven.

00:39:12 ◼   ► It gets super hot, which is like their whole thing.

00:39:15 ◼   ► Uni have worked really hard in finding a way to get an electric oven to reach 850 degrees

00:39:21 ◼   ► Fahrenheit.

00:39:23 ◼   ► So you can really get that fresh stone baked pizza in 90 seconds.

00:39:28 ◼   ► So they're able to do something to emulate what they can do with their outdoor ovens,

00:39:32 ◼   ► with their gas ones, their wood fired ones and their charcoal fired ones with an electric

00:39:37 ◼   ► oven too.

00:39:39 ◼   ► Very cool stuff.

00:39:40 ◼   ► Uni pizza ovens, their ovens will reach 900 degrees Fahrenheit which enables you to cook

00:39:44 ◼   ► that restaurant quality pizza in as quick as a minute.

00:39:46 ◼   ► Uni pizza ovens are incredibly easy to use.

00:39:49 ◼   ► The high temperature that they have separates them

00:39:51 ◼   ► from those that you'll see in a home oven.

00:39:54 ◼   ► One of the most popular models is the Uni Coda 16.

00:39:57 ◼   ► This is the one that me and Jason have had.

00:39:59 ◼   ► This will do 16 inch pizzas.

00:40:01 ◼   ► It has an innovative L-shaped burner at the back

00:40:03 ◼   ► that gives you even heat distribution.

00:40:05 ◼   ► And every pizza that comes out of an Uni is fantastic.

00:40:08 ◼   ► Their ovens start at just $2.99

00:40:11 ◼   ► of free shipping to the US, the UK and the EU.

00:40:14 ◼   ► With two of the coolest models being the Unikaru,

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00:40:19 ◼   ► - Hottest. - Hottest, Mike.

00:40:20 ◼   ► The hottest.

00:40:20 ◼   ► - Hottest models.

00:40:22 ◼   ► Well, they say coolest, but I guess I should say hottest.

00:40:24 ◼   ► The hottest ones are the Unikaru, the multi-fueled one,

00:40:27 ◼   ► the Unikoda 16, which we have.

00:40:29 ◼   ► They also have an awesome app

00:40:31 ◼   ► to help you perfect your dough recipe.

00:40:32 ◼   ► And they also have tons of accessories,

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00:41:03 ◼   ► So that is Ooni.com and the code UPGRADE2023 for 10% off.

00:41:08 ◼   ► Our thanks to Ooni Pizza Almonds for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:41:14 ◼   ► Time for a room around up.

00:41:16 ◼   ► Saddle up.

00:41:17 ◼   ► Saddle up everyone.

00:41:18 ◼   ► Ross Young has got, he published like a roadmap for the next few years of things that he's

00:41:24 ◼   ► expecting Apple to be doing in the display technology of their phones.

00:41:30 ◼   ► So the iPhone and iPhone Pro line.

00:41:32 ◼   ► So we've got a few little, there's lots of pieces of information but there were a couple

00:41:35 ◼   ► of things here that I thought were particularly interesting. So, Young is predicting that

00:41:40 ◼   ► the iPhone 17 Pro, that is the 2025 iPhone, I will tell you today, I sat and counted on

00:41:48 ◼   ► my fingers for about 5 minutes to try and work out what year the iPhone 17 would come

00:41:53 ◼   ► out and it took me quite a while. So if that's wrong, you know, there you go. The iPhone

00:42:00 ◼   ► The new iPhone 17 Pro 2025 will be the first iPhone to get an under display Face ID sensor.

00:42:07 ◼   ► There would still be a circle cut out for the front facing camera at this point, so

00:42:11 ◼   ► it would just be removing the pill shape, moving those to under the screen.

00:42:16 ◼   ► This would be the new kind of design language until the iPhone 19 in 2027, where this is

00:42:25 ◼   ► all removed for an all-screen design with both the camera and the Face ID sensors sitting

00:42:32 ◼   ► beneath the all-screen design.

00:42:34 ◼   ► Steven: Okay, great. Wake me up in 2027.

00:42:39 ◼   ► Geoff - Every phone until then, I don't even want them. You know what I mean?

00:42:43 ◼   ► Steven - That's garbage. They're all garbage.

00:42:44 ◼   ► Geoff - Holes in the phone? No thank you. Young also says that he expects that ProMotion

00:42:50 ◼   ► will remain a pro only feature until the iPhone 17 in 2025 and is unsure it seems at this moment

00:42:58 ◼   ► as to whether always on will be a feature of this phone or if it says a pro feature

00:43:02 ◼   ► so it'll be getting an LTPO display at this point and I thought it was super interesting how these

00:43:09 ◼   ► features lined up so that like once the pro phone in 2025 takes a step they will allow the regular

00:43:17 ◼   ► or iPhone to take a step.

00:43:18 ◼   ► Like it's not gonna get promotion

00:43:21 ◼   ► until the Pro phone has something else it can offer

00:43:24 ◼   ► on this in the screen display kind of area.

00:43:26 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:43:27 ◼   ► And so it was really interesting.

00:43:28 ◼   ► It's like, we're gonna wait

00:43:30 ◼   ► and we'll make those jumps at the same time.

00:43:32 ◼   ► - Fascinating.

00:43:33 ◼   ► I love this.

00:43:35 ◼   ► I guess we should check back in.

00:43:37 ◼   ► Our successors can check back in in late 2027.

00:43:41 ◼   ► - You think we're not gonna be doing this in 2027?

00:43:43 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:43:44 ◼   ► I don't want to make any assumptions about 2027.

00:43:47 ◼   ► That's far away.

00:43:49 ◼   ► But yeah, sure.

00:43:51 ◼   ► We'll check back in then.

00:43:52 ◼   ► What episode of upgrade?

00:43:53 ◼   ► We need a little calculating app.

00:43:55 ◼   ► It's like what episode of upgrade will be?

00:43:57 ◼   ► That's a long way off.

00:43:59 ◼   ► So, 2027 is four years from now, right?

00:44:04 ◼   ► Four and a half years from now, right?

00:44:06 ◼   ► Four and a half years.

00:44:07 ◼   ► Are you calculating this?

00:44:09 ◼   ► I am.

00:44:10 ◼   ► Okay, I'm excited to know.

00:44:11 ◼   ► Let me make a guess.

00:44:12 ◼   ► So this is 454, I'm gonna say like episode 1912.

00:44:17 ◼   ► I feel like I've way overshot that.

00:44:20 ◼   ► I've way overshot that. - Episode 688.

00:44:22 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:44:24 ◼   ► - Can you see why I had to do the counting

00:44:25 ◼   ► on my fingers today?

00:44:27 ◼   ► No good. - Yeah, 688.

00:44:29 ◼   ► - All right, that's not too many.

00:44:31 ◼   ► That feels like nothing.

00:44:33 ◼   ► We'll still be doing this by then.

00:44:34 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:44:35 ◼   ► - Through reporting the various leakers and sources,

00:44:37 ◼   ► 9to5Mac put together some very pretty images

00:44:40 ◼   ► of what they expect the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro to look like.

00:44:43 ◼   ► So these are some computer assisted,

00:44:46 ◼   ► is it computer assisted or aided CAD?

00:44:48 ◼   ► Is it aided, computer aided design?

00:44:50 ◼   ► They made some models basically, some digital models.

00:44:53 ◼   ► This features some imagery of the curved titanium frame

00:44:56 ◼   ► coming to the Profones, the thinner bezels.

00:44:58 ◼   ► But one additional detail that I'd not seen yet

00:45:01 ◼   ► was the color for the new Pro iPhone.

00:45:04 ◼   ► 9to5Mac is saying it will be a deep red,

00:45:07 ◼   ► which is almost like a wine color.

00:45:09 ◼   ► I don't like this color.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Of course it's deep.

00:45:12 ◼   ► I don't like this color at all, personally.

00:45:15 ◼   ► Not exciting, obviously, because it's the Pro Phone color.

00:45:20 ◼   ► But that's a piece of information for you.

00:45:24 ◼   ► Does a red, deep red iPhone excite you, Jason?

00:45:27 ◼   ► Take off that red phone?

00:45:29 ◼   ► It's better.

00:45:31 ◼   ► No, I can't because I couldn't take it to a football game.

00:45:34 ◼   ► Or I'd have to leave it in my pocket.

00:45:36 ◼   ► leave it in my pocket, but I'm glad that it's a color.

00:45:40 ◼   ► Like that's good.

00:45:42 ◼   ► But again, it feels like it's a boring color.

00:45:45 ◼   ► I wonder how these phones will be received

00:45:49 ◼   ► because changing the frame to be titanium

00:45:53 ◼   ► and bringing the bezels in a little bit,

00:45:54 ◼   ► like it's super subtle, right?

00:45:56 ◼   ► Like would you look at one of these phones

00:45:58 ◼   ► and say, "Whoa, it's the new iPhone."

00:46:01 ◼   ► 'Cause I wouldn't, it feels very much like a continuation

00:46:05 ◼   ► of the existing design language.

00:46:06 ◼   ► Yeah, it is very much so.

00:46:09 ◼   ► Uh, the, I think if you say these changes

00:46:11 ◼   ► will be minimal because yes, they're

00:46:15 ◼   ► curving the edges, but realistically

00:46:17 ◼   ► they photograph the same, you know.

00:46:19 ◼   ► I think that Apple will be pushing

00:46:23 ◼   ► this phone on whatever is going

00:46:25 ◼   ► on in the Pro Max this year.

00:46:27 ◼   ► So like the, the new camera layout

00:46:29 ◼   ► and what that will enable.

00:46:31 ◼   ► I think this will be another year where

00:46:33 ◼   ► they can maybe try and get away with

00:46:34 ◼   ► of what's on the inside than rather than what's on the outside.

00:46:38 ◼   ► But this is definitely not looking at these images anyway.

00:46:42 ◼   ► This is not gonna be a year where it's like,

00:46:44 ◼   ► oh wow, look at the new design.

00:46:45 ◼   ► No, this very much is in the iPhone 12

00:46:49 ◼   ► kind of design language.

00:46:53 ◼   ► It's not changing.

00:46:54 ◼   ► I am personally happy about that

00:46:56 ◼   ► 'cause I like the iPhone 12 design language a lot.

00:46:58 ◼   ► I think it's aged way better than the 6s did.

00:47:00 ◼   ► - I like it, but again,

00:47:03 ◼   ► as I've said a million times before,

00:47:04 ◼   ► I don't like how understated the Profones are,

00:47:07 ◼   ► and I wish the Profones would have,

00:47:08 ◼   ► by having the kind of frosted glass back

00:47:12 ◼   ► with the bright camera bump,

00:47:15 ◼   ► that they end up being kind of subdued

00:47:18 ◼   ► in a way that I wish they didn't have to be.

00:47:20 ◼   ► However, I will say titanium instead of stainless,

00:47:24 ◼   ► so presumably they'll be lighter.

00:47:27 ◼   ► That's good.

00:47:28 ◼   ► That's very good,

00:47:29 ◼   ► because while stainless steel is a nice material,

00:47:33 ◼   ► it was adding weight to those phones that is not necessary.

00:47:36 ◼   ► It's just not necessary.

00:47:38 ◼   ► And I understand them wanting to create a premium

00:47:40 ◼   ► kind of feel and all that, but like, it was not,

00:47:44 ◼   ► you don't want those phones to be heavier

00:47:47 ◼   ► than they need to be, and they didn't need to be that heavy.

00:47:51 ◼   ► - Mark Gorman is reporting,

00:47:52 ◼   ► he put a big piece together on Bloomberg

00:47:55 ◼   ► with some more details about Apple's plans

00:47:57 ◼   ► to make stronger moves for their manufacturing

00:48:01 ◼   ► over to places outside of China, namely mostly India.

00:48:06 ◼   ► I have a few quotes from this article to read, Jason,

00:48:09 ◼   ► if that's okay.

00:48:10 ◼   ► - Okay, sure.

00:48:11 ◼   ► - Its most ambitious plans are for India,

00:48:13 ◼   ► where it will work with a swath of partners

00:48:15 ◼   ► to make iPhones, AirPods, and Apple Pencils,

00:48:18 ◼   ► as well as components for the Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac.

00:48:22 ◼   ► Apple has already tapped three of its main assembly partners

00:48:25 ◼   ► from Taiwan to build devices in India,

00:48:28 ◼   ► Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Why are they all on?

00:48:31 ◼   ► Why do we all end it on?

00:48:33 ◼   ► That Mark didn't say that.

00:48:34 ◼   ► That was me.

00:48:34 ◼   ► It's technology.

00:48:35 ◼   ► That was my fault.

00:48:36 ◼   ► It's also recently brought on an additional key supplier

00:48:39 ◼   ► in India, Tata, to build iPhone exteriors

00:48:42 ◼   ► and ultimately assemble the whole product.

00:48:45 ◼   ► Apple produced more than 6.5 million

00:48:48 ◼   ► of the 200 million iPhones it made in 2022 in India.

00:48:52 ◼   ► It aims to produce 10 million units in 2023.

00:48:56 ◼   ► People involved in the process believe

00:48:58 ◼   ► that this number could exceed 15 million units next year, some think it could move as much

00:49:03 ◼   ► as 25% of iPhone production to India by 2025 if it sticks to the most aggressive timeline.

00:49:10 ◼   ► The company has discussed moving the majority of aluminium iPhone production out of China.

00:49:15 ◼   ► It expects to ship the iPhone 15 from both countries simultaneously, which would be a

00:49:20 ◼   ► first.

00:49:21 ◼   ► stop with that part because there's some interesting detail here right so at the

00:49:25 ◼   ► moment the only phones they are making in India are the aluminium frame phones

00:49:31 ◼   ► they're not making the pro phones there right and Mark's piece actually said

00:49:36 ◼   ► that even as they continue to go down this and even for you know this 2023

00:49:40 ◼   ► 2024 they're still going to continue making the pro phones in China and the

00:49:45 ◼   ► plus phone as well is still gonna be made there we're looking at like the SE

00:49:48 ◼   ► and the standard iPhone is gonna be made in India.

00:49:52 ◼   ► But they are looking at,

00:49:55 ◼   ► I find that super interesting that now they're aiming

00:49:58 ◼   ► for the majority of aluminum iPhone production

00:50:01 ◼   ► to be outside of China.

00:50:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's creeping in that direction.

00:50:07 ◼   ► I think it was Mark Gurman is reporting on all of this

00:50:12 ◼   ► as a way, and I appreciate it.

00:50:15 ◼   ► This is a very different kind of story

00:50:16 ◼   ► from a product-based report from Mark.

00:50:19 ◼   ► And it highlights all the reasons that it's hard

00:50:22 ◼   ► for Apple to move production

00:50:23 ◼   ► and that they're taking these steps, right?

00:50:26 ◼   ► To diversify their production locations.

00:50:31 ◼   ► And the pandemic closures of various factories in China,

00:50:36 ◼   ► I think gave Apple a thing to point to and say,

00:50:42 ◼   ► see we need to have factories all over the world so that we aren't just in China.

00:50:49 ◼   ► But also I think this gives you an idea of just how extended this process is, where they're

00:50:54 ◼   ► like, "We're hoping that if we push this really hard, we might have 25% of our iPhones produced

00:51:01 ◼   ► in India in a few years."

00:51:04 ◼   ► And that's the most aggressive version.

00:51:06 ◼   ► But keeping in mind that a lot of stuff is still coming from China and a lot of stuff

00:51:09 ◼   ► still being made and assembled in China.

00:51:12 ◼   ► And it's a long ongoing process.

00:51:17 ◼   ► And it's not like, yeah, Apple's moving out of China

00:51:20 ◼   ► and then it won't be a problem.

00:51:21 ◼   ► That's not what's happening here.

00:51:23 ◼   ► - They also mention, well, saying about,

00:51:26 ◼   ► there's also David in Discord is talking about Taiwan

00:51:29 ◼   ► is another issue.

00:51:30 ◼   ► And Mark talks about that,

00:51:31 ◼   ► but it wasn't particularly interesting or new for the story

00:51:34 ◼   ► where he's talking about, you know,

00:51:35 ◼   ► like Apple looking at making some chips in,

00:51:39 ◼   ► is in Arizona is where the TSMC plant's gonna be.

00:51:42 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:51:43 ◼   ► - But we know this from talking before of like,

00:51:45 ◼   ► realistically they're not making much of anything

00:51:49 ◼   ► that seems to be exciting from that plant for many years.

00:51:52 ◼   ► But like, yes it's diversifying,

00:51:54 ◼   ► but it is also still TSMC.

00:51:56 ◼   ► So like, and this is the same,

00:51:58 ◼   ► I do still continue to find this funny of like,

00:52:01 ◼   ► it's the same companies they're still using,

00:52:03 ◼   ► like Foxconn and Pegatron.

00:52:05 ◼   ► Like these are the same companies that they use.

00:52:07 ◼   ► I don't know if that diversifies them or not.

00:52:10 ◼   ► Like I don't fully understand the corporate structure

00:52:15 ◼   ► of some of these companies, right?

00:52:17 ◼   ► And like how that could affect it,

00:52:18 ◼   ► where it's like, if Apple has an issue with China

00:52:23 ◼   ► and the Chinese government potentially,

00:52:25 ◼   ► is that going to make it complicated

00:52:27 ◼   ► for the companies that they work with

00:52:28 ◼   ► that have huge Chinese presences?

00:52:31 ◼   ► That like even if they're working with them in India,

00:52:33 ◼   ► could it still not cause a problem?

00:52:35 ◼   ► Like one thing to do is to diversify yourself

00:52:38 ◼   ► from a geographical perspective,

00:52:40 ◼   ► but you also surely want to diversify yourself

00:52:42 ◼   ► from a supplier perspective as well,

00:52:45 ◼   ► which it seems like they're doing with Tata,

00:52:47 ◼   ► which I believe is an Indian focused company,

00:52:50 ◼   ► if I'm remembering correctly.

00:52:53 ◼   ► So like that is kind of what I would expect

00:52:56 ◼   ► and hope to see them do more as like a further push.

00:53:00 ◼   ► And I understand, you know, from reading our favorite book,

00:53:04 ◼   ► how complicated this can be and like Apple has to do the work which I'm sure they're

00:53:08 ◼   ► doing of getting these manufacturing companies up to their standards and doing what it takes

00:53:15 ◼   ► to get them to their standards which is why they continue to use Foxconn and Pegatron

00:53:19 ◼   ► because they put all this work for many many years to get them to the level of like okay

00:53:26 ◼   ► this is what we're willing to accept and which is different to maybe other companies and

00:53:30 ◼   ► what they're willing to accept.

00:53:31 ◼   ► So we'll see what it ends up being there.

00:53:34 ◼   ► But Mark Gorman also says managers

00:53:38 ◼   ► in Apple's operations department have instructed employees

00:53:40 ◼   ► to focus on sourcing additional components

00:53:43 ◼   ► and locating production lines outside of China

00:53:46 ◼   ► for more new products coming in 2024.

00:53:48 ◼   ► - More new products, not necessarily the iPhone just,

00:53:51 ◼   ► but other things.

00:53:52 ◼   ► And that is the basically challenging people to say

00:53:57 ◼   ► when we roll out this product,

00:54:00 ◼   ► are we gonna build this whole supply chain

00:54:02 ◼   ► and manufacturing structure for this product

00:54:06 ◼   ► inside China too?

00:54:07 ◼   ► Could we not do that?

00:54:09 ◼   ► Could we build this new product?

00:54:11 ◼   ► 'Cause then it's not taking that product out of China.

00:54:13 ◼   ► It's not ever making that product in China,

00:54:16 ◼   ► which is part of the long-term strategy here,

00:54:19 ◼   ► is to do that.

00:54:20 ◼   ► So yeah, this is a...

00:54:22 ◼   ► And it's a challenge because they don't want

00:54:27 ◼   ► to give offense to China, but they do need to send the message that they can't be entirely

00:54:34 ◼   ► reliant on China for their operations.

00:54:37 ◼   ► I think leaving aside, which is hard to do, the global sweep of geopolitics for a moment,

00:54:44 ◼   ► I think it's also just smart on a larger level of not keeping all your eggs in one basket.

00:54:48 ◼   ► Happy Easter to everybody.

00:54:50 ◼   ► like maybe it's wise to not put every single regardless of China's status

00:54:57 ◼   ► politically every single product that you make in a small section of a country

00:55:05 ◼   ► like when they had those shutdowns and they couldn't make max for a while like

00:55:09 ◼   ► that's probably not great right that's probably not what you should be doing

00:55:13 ◼   ► and they got so it was such a great deal to build everything in China for Apple

00:55:20 ◼   ► that they did it and now this is the sort of latter-day Tim Cook era of "okay,

00:55:27 ◼   ► we need to back off of all that strategy." MacRumors is reporting that iOS 17 is

00:55:34 ◼   ► going to see some quote "major changes" to Control Center. Don't really mention

00:55:38 ◼   ► what these might be, but it comes from a source of theirs. And it did just make me

00:55:42 ◼   ► sit and think like about Control Center as a thing and how it kind of, I don't

00:55:47 ◼   ► it feels a little bit old and weird to me now and is also one of these things in iOS

00:55:51 ◼   ► kind of like notification center really all the centers where they've never it never

00:55:55 ◼   ► really feels like they have nailed what people are looking for out of this part of the operating

00:56:02 ◼   ► system so like when I use control center now I feel like overall this design feels tired

00:56:09 ◼   ► Like it still looks very like iOS 70 to me,

00:56:13 ◼   ► like these like kind of like opaque buttons.

00:56:16 ◼   ► - Right.

00:56:17 ◼   ► - And I would love to see it kind of just generally

00:56:22 ◼   ► get a fresh design with different kinds

00:56:25 ◼   ► of information density.

00:56:26 ◼   ► Like I've seen a lot of people post concepts online

00:56:30 ◼   ► like I was like Googling around for concepts today

00:56:32 ◼   ► to kind of just like what things might you want to see

00:56:35 ◼   ► added to this.

00:56:36 ◼   ► And a lot of people like, you know,

00:56:37 ◼   ► different toggles and switches and dials and like you know like maybe putting the

00:56:41 ◼   ► volume as a horizontal rather than a vertical because it would take up less

00:56:45 ◼   ► space and I just thought like little things like that I thought were

00:56:47 ◼   ► interesting but there were a couple of features that I thought for myself

00:56:51 ◼   ► rather than just out of design that I would like to see. One of them is better

00:56:56 ◼   ► access to home controls so like all of the home kit stuff because it feels like

00:57:02 ◼   ► like it is. iOS is trying to guess what it thinks I want, right? Which is fine. I would

00:57:08 ◼   ► like to have more of them there and I would like to be able to pin some. Just be like,

00:57:13 ◼   ► I always want these controls to be there. Just show me these controls. And then I was

00:57:17 ◼   ► thinking just conceptually, let's put some shortcut buttons in there. What about some

00:57:23 ◼   ► widgets? You know, I could put lock screen widgets in control center too. And also could

00:57:28 ◼   ► maybe finally developers be able to put a button in there,

00:57:33 ◼   ► something like that.

00:57:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, that is, I mean, you mentioned home,

00:57:37 ◼   ► and that's one of my great frustrations is like,

00:57:39 ◼   ► it just guesses what I want in home,

00:57:42 ◼   ► and like I can turn, don't show this,

00:57:45 ◼   ► and it will just, it will, and then,

00:57:47 ◼   ► so I just turned off my lava lamp was in there.

00:57:51 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:57:52 ◼   ► - And so now I turned it off as show it in home view,

00:57:58 ◼   ► and it disappeared and it just replaces it

00:58:00 ◼   ► with like another random light bulb

00:58:01 ◼   ► that's somewhere else in the house.

00:58:03 ◼   ► And it's like, it's so frustrating

00:58:04 ◼   ► because I'm playing the game of what switch do I flip

00:58:07 ◼   ► deep down in the home app in order to get that one

00:58:11 ◼   ► to disappear from control center?

00:58:13 ◼   ► And the answer is, I guess, you know,

00:58:15 ◼   ► show in home view is the answer

00:58:18 ◼   ► because it will show me six of them.

00:58:20 ◼   ► - But then by doing that,

00:58:21 ◼   ► you end up with like other ramifications.

00:58:24 ◼   ► And now it's not gonna show

00:58:25 ◼   ► in a certain part of the home app,

00:58:26 ◼   ► which isn't necessarily what you want,

00:58:28 ◼   ► - Exactly. - You're just trying

00:58:29 ◼   ► to hide it from Control Center.

00:58:30 ◼   ► - Right, so number one is I should be able to say

00:58:33 ◼   ► what things show in Control Center.

00:58:35 ◼   ► And if they wanted to make that another switch

00:58:37 ◼   ► in the Home app, that's fine.

00:58:39 ◼   ► But like it's intuiting things from my home decisions

00:58:43 ◼   ► that it should not.

00:58:45 ◼   ► And it's frustrating.

00:58:46 ◼   ► And I've had to do it both ways

00:58:47 ◼   ► where I want to take things out of the Home app,

00:58:49 ◼   ► or out of Control Center.

00:58:51 ◼   ► And then there are also things

00:58:52 ◼   ► I want to put in Control Center.

00:58:53 ◼   ► It's like, okay, well, how do I do that?

00:58:54 ◼   ► It's frustrating.

00:58:57 ◼   ► and nothing like having to tap and swipe like eight times

00:59:00 ◼   ► in order to get something off of your control center.

00:59:02 ◼   ► And then it replaces it with something else that's worse.

00:59:05 ◼   ► Like, okay, I don't want that either.

00:59:06 ◼   ► - Also, I have a very particular issue,

00:59:09 ◼   ► which is like a weird one,

00:59:11 ◼   ► but most people won't have this situation, I just do.

00:59:15 ◼   ► In HomeKit, you can have multiple homes,

00:59:18 ◼   ► which I always found that,

00:59:19 ◼   ► I remember finding this funny at the time

00:59:21 ◼   ► when I got the studio,

00:59:22 ◼   ► 'cause I have a home at the studio

00:59:25 ◼   ► and I have my home as a home, right?

00:59:26 ◼   ► So I have HomeKit in both places.

00:59:28 ◼   ► And it was funny to me at the time,

00:59:30 ◼   ► 'cause when I was looking at Google and Amazon and HomeKit,

00:59:33 ◼   ► to like try and work it out,

00:59:34 ◼   ► the only one that I could find that had robust support

00:59:37 ◼   ► at that time for multiple homes was HomeKit.

00:59:40 ◼   ► And there was something funny to me there of like,

00:59:43 ◼   ► Apple's designed for multiple homes.

00:59:45 ◼   ► We have multiple homes, you know?

00:59:47 ◼   ► So we've got like the beach home and the home home,

00:59:50 ◼   ► and we've got to have a HomeKit set in both places.

00:59:52 ◼   ► but I have my studio as a home, right, in HomeKit.

00:59:57 ◼   ► And you have the ability to geofence them

01:00:00 ◼   ► and for the home app to auto switch.

01:00:03 ◼   ► The home app works about 70% of the time

01:00:06 ◼   ► to do the auto switching.

01:00:07 ◼   ► Control center is maybe 40 or 50% of the time.

01:00:11 ◼   ► That like, I'm in my house and I pull down control center

01:00:15 ◼   ► and it's showing me controls for my studio.

01:00:18 ◼   ► Like that's not good, right?

01:00:20 ◼   ► Like that's like another thing for me personally

01:00:22 ◼   ► why the home controls annoy me in Control Center

01:00:24 ◼   ► is I'm trying to get,

01:00:25 ◼   ► and that's why I'd like to pin things

01:00:27 ◼   ► 'cause there are a couple of things that I access a lot.

01:00:30 ◼   ► And like, I actually, there's one,

01:00:31 ◼   ► like I want to turn on my heat controls at the studio

01:00:35 ◼   ► when I'm at home.

01:00:37 ◼   ► - Ah.

01:00:38 ◼   ► - So I've set up a shortcut for this

01:00:41 ◼   ► and I put it in the widget so I can do it.

01:00:43 ◼   ► But what I would like to be able to do in Control Center

01:00:46 ◼   ► is pin that scene for the studio's controls

01:00:50 ◼   ► in Control Center.

01:00:51 ◼   ► so it doesn't matter where I am.

01:00:53 ◼   ► - Right.

01:00:54 ◼   ► - Let me turn the heat on and off, you know?

01:00:56 ◼   ► So like, I would like to be able to do more

01:00:59 ◼   ► of that around home.

01:01:01 ◼   ► I mean, honestly, Jason, for me,

01:01:03 ◼   ► what I would like Control Center to do

01:01:05 ◼   ► is have my music, some quick toggles,

01:01:08 ◼   ► and then just be the home app.

01:01:10 ◼   ► Like, that is what I'm using it most for.

01:01:13 ◼   ► Like, if I just had access to everything

01:01:16 ◼   ► that's in the home app in Control Center,

01:01:19 ◼   ► that would make me a happy man.

01:01:20 ◼   ► Like they're just basically the same thing

01:01:23 ◼   ► because that's what I'm using it for.

01:01:25 ◼   ► It's like media volume, turning wifi on and off

01:01:29 ◼   ► and then just using the control center,

01:01:31 ◼   ► using the home kit part, like the home.

01:01:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:01:34 ◼   ► - That would be great.

01:01:35 ◼   ► I would love that.

01:01:37 ◼   ► - So yes, I agree with you 100% on home.

01:01:42 ◼   ► I love having home access in the control center,

01:01:44 ◼   ► but I don't love that I have no control, ironically,

01:01:48 ◼   ► over what goes in there and the context that it's in.

01:01:53 ◼   ► I also say, would like to say that they changed the behavior

01:01:57 ◼   ► of lights that have a dimmable area that drives me crazy.

01:02:02 ◼   ► That they, it used to be that if you tapped

01:02:04 ◼   ► on a dimmable light, it would open up the dimmer

01:02:07 ◼   ► and then you could swipe it up and down

01:02:08 ◼   ► to make it brighter or dimmer.

01:02:09 ◼   ► Now, if you tap on the button,

01:02:12 ◼   ► it just turns it at a hundred percent.

01:02:14 ◼   ► If it's off, you have to tap and hold,

01:02:17 ◼   ► wait for it to come up, then slide it, then tap away.

01:02:22 ◼   ► It's like, that's not, that's worse.

01:02:25 ◼   ► That's worse.

01:02:26 ◼   ► I guess it's worse unless you're somebody

01:02:27 ◼   ► who normally just flips it on and off,

01:02:29 ◼   ► but sometimes wants to adjust the dimming.

01:02:31 ◼   ► That's not the case with me.

01:02:33 ◼   ► If it's dimmable,

01:02:33 ◼   ► I probably wanna choose the brightness level.

01:02:37 ◼   ► So that's not there.

01:02:38 ◼   ► So I agree, the whole home thing needs to be fixed.

01:02:40 ◼   ► It does feel kind of old.

01:02:42 ◼   ► I love that it's customizable now,

01:02:44 ◼   ► but it's customizable with such a limited set of things.

01:02:48 ◼   ► And that's what, so when you mentioned shortcuts,

01:02:50 ◼   ► I immediately thought, well,

01:02:51 ◼   ► that's the beauty of something like shortcuts,

01:02:54 ◼   ► is that you can open the door to other things

01:02:57 ◼   ► you want to do on your device

01:02:59 ◼   ► that you can nest inside Control Center

01:03:02 ◼   ► and make it switchable with one tap.

01:03:04 ◼   ► I really like that.

01:03:06 ◼   ► Also, I find it, you know, yeah,

01:03:08 ◼   ► I think they need to refresh the language here.

01:03:11 ◼   ► In the Home app, they've got this whole thing

01:03:13 ◼   ► where the circles are inside the rectangles

01:03:18 ◼   ► and you can't tap on the rectangle,

01:03:21 ◼   ► you have to tap on the circle inside the rectangle,

01:03:23 ◼   ► that's the button.

01:03:24 ◼   ► It's very confusing.

01:03:25 ◼   ► So I hope they don't go there with that

01:03:28 ◼   ► 'cause that's awful.

01:03:31 ◼   ► But it is when I look at the big square

01:03:34 ◼   ► with the four circles in it on my iPad now, right?

01:03:39 ◼   ► For airplane, cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth,

01:03:42 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't know.

01:03:44 ◼   ► Like there's something about the circles inside the squares.

01:03:49 ◼   ► It's like, I don't know what we're doing here.

01:03:52 ◼   ► And it does, yeah.

01:03:53 ◼   ► Like it does.

01:03:54 ◼   ► - It has remnants of a different era in it,

01:03:57 ◼   ► I think like throughout.

01:03:59 ◼   ► Control centers had very similar kind of design language

01:04:03 ◼   ► for quite a while.

01:04:04 ◼   ► - Right.

01:04:05 ◼   ► It has no organizational principles either, right?

01:04:09 ◼   ► like it seems to me that it's just sort of like,

01:04:13 ◼   ► they're not like sections of it,

01:04:14 ◼   ► other than those big rectangles

01:04:16 ◼   ► that have a bunch of buttons inside it.

01:04:18 ◼   ► They're not sections in it.

01:04:20 ◼   ► So you end up with sort of like just icons all the way down.

01:04:25 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:04:26 ◼   ► - I just found an image of iOS 7 Control Center.

01:04:29 ◼   ► It's actually the image that I found

01:04:31 ◼   ► and pasted in the Discord

01:04:32 ◼   ► was of a jailbreak tweak to emulate it, but nevertheless.

01:04:35 ◼   ► And it's just a reminder,

01:04:36 ◼   ► so this was when Control Center was,

01:04:38 ◼   ► you swipe up from the bottom, right?

01:04:40 ◼   ► In iOS seven times.

01:04:42 ◼   ► But the design is still incredibly similar,

01:04:47 ◼   ► that it is like a translucent layer,

01:04:49 ◼   ► and the buttons are circular,

01:04:51 ◼   ► and then there are some buttons at the bottom

01:04:53 ◼   ► that are round-recs.

01:04:54 ◼   ► And it's just like, that is,

01:04:56 ◼   ► that has been this way for a very, very long time now,

01:05:00 ◼   ► kind of like fundamentally.

01:05:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, talking about home,

01:05:05 ◼   ► The other thing is I have a home rectangle

01:05:08 ◼   ► next to all my home items.

01:05:09 ◼   ► And if you tap that, it brings up kind of like a version

01:05:11 ◼   ► of the Home app and that's got my favorites on it.

01:05:15 ◼   ► But the favorites are not what appears in Control Center.

01:05:19 ◼   ► So I don't understand that at all, right?

01:05:23 ◼   ► Like my, again, it's inconsistent and frustrating.

01:05:26 ◼   ► It's also a little weird that I've got like the whole Home

01:05:28 ◼   ► app inside Control Center.

01:05:29 ◼   ► Plus I've got all these little tiles that I can't control.

01:05:32 ◼   ► Like there's just,

01:05:34 ◼   ► I appreciate that this is hard,

01:05:37 ◼   ► but I think what we're saying is when we hear

01:05:40 ◼   ► there are gonna be major changes to Control Center,

01:05:41 ◼   ► I say, yes, please.

01:05:43 ◼   ► And after that, most of what I say is,

01:05:45 ◼   ► I would like to be able to customize this

01:05:47 ◼   ► at a much higher level.

01:05:48 ◼   ► Think about how you can customize widgets.

01:05:50 ◼   ► I actually would like to be able to tap and hold

01:05:53 ◼   ► in Control Center and then start deleting items

01:05:56 ◼   ► and have a little plus where I could add items.

01:05:59 ◼   ► And I definitely wanna be able to add something

01:06:01 ◼   ► like shortcuts so that I can very quickly change

01:06:06 ◼   ► what I'm doing with more sophistication than is allowed

01:06:11 ◼   ► by what's on Control Center right now.

01:06:12 ◼   ► I think that that's all good.

01:06:15 ◼   ► And we'll throw in, since we talked about it with the watch,

01:06:17 ◼   ► how about dynamic items in here too?

01:06:22 ◼   ► Like I have a big square that says not playing right now.

01:06:29 ◼   ► 'cause I need to have a big square that tells me

01:06:31 ◼   ► I'm not currently playing any media on my iPad.

01:06:33 ◼   ► And it's like, well, if I'm not playing media on my iPad,

01:06:36 ◼   ► maybe I don't need the big square.

01:06:37 ◼   ► Maybe it should get smaller.

01:06:39 ◼   ► Maybe it should change based on context, but it doesn't.

01:06:43 ◼   ► So yeah, I would use,

01:06:47 ◼   ► I would love to see a new take on Control Center

01:06:50 ◼   ► because I think Control Center as a concept is great,

01:06:53 ◼   ► but right now it's limited to stock things from Apple

01:06:58 ◼   ► and a bunch of home things that are a guess.

01:07:01 ◼   ► And like, it could use some rethinking.

01:07:05 ◼   ► - We are eight weeks away today

01:07:08 ◼   ► from maybe finding out if iOS 17

01:07:11 ◼   ► will include something like a control center change.

01:07:14 ◼   ► If you enjoy this show and want more of this show,

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01:07:54 ◼   ► Every single week we produce additional content for the Upgrade Plus members.

01:08:01 ◼   ► They get to listen to me and Jason talk about extra things.

01:08:04 ◼   ► I think today we're going to talk about some inside baseball things in the show,

01:08:08 ◼   ► like how we've been playing around with webcams for video clips of the show.

01:08:12 ◼   ► We have some follow up on that.

01:08:14 ◼   ► And some issues that Jason's been dealing with the bot that we were using on Twitter

01:08:19 ◼   ► to post that we were live.

01:08:22 ◼   ► So Jason's had a little bit of time with that.

01:08:25 ◼   ► So we'll be talking about that in Upgrade Plus today.

01:08:27 ◼   ► Go to getupgradeplus.com and you can sign up.

01:08:30 ◼   ► Thank you if you do.

01:08:32 ◼   ► It is time for some new and improved Ask Upgrade.

01:08:37 ◼   ► (imitates laser)

01:08:40 ◼   ► The lasers have reached from inside of the show

01:08:44 ◼   ► and into your podcast app.

01:08:46 ◼   ► We have brand new Ask Upgrade artwork

01:08:48 ◼   ► courtesy of our designer, JD Davis.

01:08:51 ◼   ► So this was part of a, I think we were talking about,

01:08:53 ◼   ► you mentioned to me, there's a hashtag on the Ask Upgrade.

01:08:56 ◼   ► And I'm like, oh yeah, we don't call it that anymore.

01:08:59 ◼   ► And so we decided it was time for,

01:09:02 ◼   ► we were originally like seeing if we could find

01:09:03 ◼   ► the old artwork file, which actually I didn't have this one,

01:09:06 ◼   ► but whatever, but also the artwork had like a tweet

01:09:11 ◼   ► is the central part.

01:09:12 ◼   ► So it's like, all right, it's time to rethink this.

01:09:15 ◼   ► We have brand new Ask Upgrade artwork

01:09:17 ◼   ► and it is now gonna be a part of every episode.

01:09:19 ◼   ► So you'll be able to see it there.

01:09:20 ◼   ► it's beautiful, it's full of lasers of course. Now the actual first Ask Upgrade question

01:09:25 ◼   ► for today's episode is going to come from Steve who says "I just got an M1 MacBook

01:09:31 ◼   ► Air, and there are a few bits of software, mainly printer related of course, that require

01:09:36 ◼   ► Rosetta 2. Is there any downside to installing Rosetta on my new Mac?" I'm wondering if

01:09:43 ◼   ► I should maybe be looking for different Mac apps that work directly with Apple Silicon

01:09:47 ◼   ► to replace this into an Air software instead.

01:09:50 ◼   ► Look, there's no reason not to install Rosetta.

01:09:52 ◼   ► It's funny that Apple makes you.

01:09:55 ◼   ► There's probably some very specific legal requirement

01:09:57 ◼   ► why they do that that way.

01:09:58 ◼   ► But don't worry about it.

01:10:00 ◼   ► Go ahead and install it, get the compatibility you seek.

01:10:03 ◼   ► Of course you should see if there's any app

01:10:05 ◼   ► that you're using that you rely on for lots of stuff

01:10:07 ◼   ► and it's only available as an Intel version,

01:10:09 ◼   ► you should probably look into

01:10:11 ◼   ► whether they've got an Apple Silicon version.

01:10:13 ◼   ► I'm not sure if there's an app that you use and you like

01:10:16 ◼   ► and it hasn't been updated and it still works.

01:10:19 ◼   ► you know, either they're gonna need to update,

01:10:22 ◼   ► I mean, it does say something, right?

01:10:23 ◼   ► If it hasn't been updated,

01:10:24 ◼   ► that maybe they're not gonna update it.

01:10:26 ◼   ► And if at some point here,

01:10:27 ◼   ► Apple will ship a version of Mac OS

01:10:29 ◼   ► that doesn't have Rosetta 2 on it, right?

01:10:32 ◼   ► Like that is gonna happen eventually.

01:10:34 ◼   ► That is their track record,

01:10:35 ◼   ► is eventually they'll ship an OS version and say,

01:10:37 ◼   ► "Sorry, no Intel compatibility at all at this point."

01:10:40 ◼   ► And you'll just have to deal with that.

01:10:43 ◼   ► But I don't think that is a,

01:10:46 ◼   ► I don't think you should worry about it.

01:10:47 ◼   ► Like Rosetta is fine.

01:10:48 ◼   ► If you've got a powerful piece of software

01:10:51 ◼   ► that you use all the time,

01:10:52 ◼   ► maybe you should get a native version of that.

01:10:54 ◼   ► Maybe that's a good idea.

01:10:56 ◼   ► But in general, Rosetta actually works great and is fine,

01:11:00 ◼   ► and you're not gonna really even notice for most things.

01:11:03 ◼   ► So don't sweat it, just install Rosetta

01:11:05 ◼   ► and don't worry about it.

01:11:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, I had forgotten completely about Rosetta

01:11:10 ◼   ► until I saw this question from Steve,

01:11:12 ◼   ► just because like on the new Ample Silicon chips,

01:11:15 ◼   ► Rosetta is unnoticeable, basically.

01:11:17 ◼   ► So it's not an issue.

01:11:19 ◼   ► Install it if you need it,

01:11:20 ◼   ► especially for stuff like printer stuff.

01:11:22 ◼   ► Eventually, as Jay said, you'll get around to it.

01:11:24 ◼   ► But it is also worth checking,

01:11:26 ◼   ► 'cause I've seen this where sometimes apps

01:11:28 ◼   ► don't offer you the right version.

01:11:31 ◼   ► Like, and there is actually,

01:11:32 ◼   ► sometimes on people's website,

01:11:34 ◼   ► like if you download this version,

01:11:35 ◼   ► it's actually the absolute conversion.

01:11:37 ◼   ► I don't know why some developers do it this way,

01:11:39 ◼   ► but just is the way it tends to be with weird stuff.

01:11:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have like nine processes currently running

01:11:45 ◼   ► on my Mac that are Intel,

01:11:46 ◼   ► and they're all like little helper apps and stuff

01:11:50 ◼   ► that are not that important, but they're there.

01:11:52 ◼   ► - Activity, you go to activity monitor

01:11:56 ◼   ► and when you see all the process loads-

01:11:58 ◼   ► - Kind. - Kind.

01:12:00 ◼   ► How kind?

01:12:01 ◼   ► - Be kind, rewind.

01:12:04 ◼   ► - Oh boy, I was gonna say I was 100%, but I'm not.

01:12:07 ◼   ► I have like 20?

01:12:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have like the Keyboard Maestro Stream Deck plugin

01:12:15 ◼   ► and the KM link are both this way.

01:12:18 ◼   ► - I don't know why Skype helper,

01:12:20 ◼   ► well Skype is not open on my computer.

01:12:22 ◼   ► - OSA script, that's hilarious.

01:12:25 ◼   ► That's a Apple script.

01:12:27 ◼   ► - I've got keyboard, my shirt.

01:12:28 ◼   ► Most of mine are Wacom for my tablet, my drone tablet.

01:12:32 ◼   ► I've got like six of them here that are doing their thing.

01:12:36 ◼   ► And it's a bunch of stuff that I obviously,

01:12:37 ◼   ► I have no idea what these things are.

01:12:39 ◼   ► They're just like look effectively codes

01:12:42 ◼   ► for things that I don't understand,

01:12:44 ◼   ► but there's quite a few things going on in there.

01:12:47 ◼   ► Jeremy asks, do you think Apple's headset

01:12:49 ◼   ► will allow hot swapping the external battery pack,

01:12:52 ◼   ► which has been rumored,

01:12:53 ◼   ► without losing power to the headset?

01:12:56 ◼   ► For long sessions, it seems like a clunky user experience

01:12:59 ◼   ► would be to have to turn off the device

01:13:01 ◼   ► in the middle of a work meeting or a game,

01:13:03 ◼   ► switch the battery and wait for it to boot back up again.

01:13:06 ◼   ► - Maybe.

01:13:06 ◼   ► - I was wondering if maybe it would have

01:13:08 ◼   ► a very small internal battery to deal with this.

01:13:12 ◼   ► - It's possible.

01:13:12 ◼   ► if it allows you to actually do it all, the swapping.

01:13:16 ◼   ► 'Cause there is the idea of the battery pack

01:13:18 ◼   ► and we think it will probably allow for swapping,

01:13:21 ◼   ► but we don't know that it will do that.

01:13:23 ◼   ► - No, or they've got some sort of a, what is it?

01:13:27 ◼   ► A transformer or a resistor, I forget what it's called,

01:13:31 ◼   ► but one of those things where it holds power

01:13:33 ◼   ► for a very small amount of time,

01:13:35 ◼   ► so that you could swap it in and out

01:13:36 ◼   ► and it would still hold the power and it would be okay.

01:13:39 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:13:40 ◼   ► It's a good question.

01:13:41 ◼   ► It would sure be nice if you,

01:13:45 ◼   ► I think the question is,

01:13:46 ◼   ► are people going to be chain battering these things, right?

01:13:51 ◼   ► Where they're using it so long

01:13:53 ◼   ► that they have to just keep on swapping in new batteries

01:13:56 ◼   ► or whether that's not a real common use case.

01:14:00 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:14:01 ◼   ► - And that's the mystery of it.

01:14:02 ◼   ► - We just don't know.

01:14:03 ◼   ► Frank wrote in and says,

01:14:06 ◼   ► "I hear more and more people talking about the VR goggles

01:14:09 ◼   ► projecting a Mac desktop in front of your eyes

01:14:11 ◼   ► and how that could be useful.

01:14:13 ◼   ► But not everybody is a touch typist.

01:14:15 ◼   ► How are we supposed to see what keys

01:14:17 ◼   ► on a physical keyboard we would be pressing

01:14:19 ◼   ► whilst wearing the goggles?

01:14:21 ◼   ► Now obviously that's no problem for you, Jason,

01:14:23 ◼   ► 'cause you can type away. - I see it in my mind.

01:14:27 ◼   ► - Right, but I cannot do this

01:14:29 ◼   ► and I need to look at my keyboard.

01:14:31 ◼   ► And so I will use my experiences

01:14:33 ◼   ► of the MetaQuest products and the AR modes.

01:14:38 ◼   ► So it's a couple of things that they do.

01:14:40 ◼   ► So this is like in, say like in a Meta's Horizon workrooms thing,

01:14:44 ◼   ► where you can designate an area of your desk

01:14:47 ◼   ► to be shown to you through their pass through.

01:14:50 ◼   ► So this is where the AR comes to the fore.

01:14:52 ◼   ► So you're in a VR environment, but you look down

01:14:55 ◼   ► and you can actually see through the cameras on the front of the headset,

01:14:58 ◼   ► your actual desk in front of you.

01:15:00 ◼   ► That's one way to do it.

01:15:02 ◼   ► They've also built the ability to recognize certain keyboards.

01:15:07 ◼   ► Apple's Magic Keyboard is one of them.

01:15:09 ◼   ► So if you have a Magic Keyboard on your desk,

01:15:10 ◼   ► if you look down, there is a virtual one,

01:15:13 ◼   ► like on your desk, and when you hold your hands over it,

01:15:16 ◼   ► it just shows pass-through of just your actual real fingers.

01:15:19 ◼   ► It's super weird and cool, so you can actually type away.

01:15:23 ◼   ► So I expect Apple will do things similar to this,

01:15:25 ◼   ► at least I would hope.

01:15:26 ◼   ► They're not gonna expect us all to be typing

01:15:28 ◼   ► on a virtual keyboard the whole time.

01:15:30 ◼   ► That would be sad.

01:15:31 ◼   ► - Right.

01:15:32 ◼   ► - So there are ways to do with it.

01:15:33 ◼   ► - It's mixed reality, right?

01:15:35 ◼   ► So the idea that you could detect a keyboard,

01:15:40 ◼   ► probably just from the key layout, right?

01:15:42 ◼   ► I mean, this is the thing is you say certain models,

01:15:44 ◼   ► but like ideally it should be able to detect a keyboard

01:15:49 ◼   ► and that's it.

01:15:52 ◼   ► And then it could pass that through

01:15:54 ◼   ► or it can make a virtual version of the keyboard

01:15:57 ◼   ► or it could show your hands or it can show virtual hands,

01:16:00 ◼   ► but it's matching your hands.

01:16:02 ◼   ► Like there are lots of different ways to do this

01:16:04 ◼   ► where you can have a physical keyboard

01:16:08 ◼   ► and have it be part of the environment

01:16:10 ◼   ► along with your giant virtual display

01:16:13 ◼   ► that's in front of you.

01:16:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, like I don't use an Apple Magic keyboard,

01:16:17 ◼   ► but I've been able to trick the Horizon work

01:16:20 ◼   ► to think I'm using one.

01:16:21 ◼   ► I could just put one of my keyboards in front of it

01:16:24 ◼   ► and most of the time it's like,

01:16:25 ◼   ► oh, I can see your keyboard

01:16:26 ◼   ► and it just shows me in the virtual environment

01:16:29 ◼   ► a Magic keyboard, but that works

01:16:31 ◼   ► 'cause I can still just type away.

01:16:32 ◼   ► - And is that the keyboard that you're using for input?

01:16:34 ◼   ► - No, I'm using one of my other ones, but it thinks,

01:16:38 ◼   ► oh wait, when you say for input, what are you asking me?

01:16:41 ◼   ► - Well, I think the question is,

01:16:42 ◼   ► if I have just a completely unplugged nothing keyboard

01:16:46 ◼   ► and I start typing on it, does it know what keys I'm typing

01:16:50 ◼   ► and types them in for me, or am I typing on a keyboard

01:16:53 ◼   ► that's connected to the computer

01:16:54 ◼   ► that's being projected in front of me?

01:16:56 ◼   ► - I'm only using a keyboard when I'm using

01:16:59 ◼   ► like a virtual desktop inside of the space.

01:17:02 ◼   ► So I haven't tried that the other way.

01:17:04 ◼   ► I think it's just like- - Probably not.

01:17:06 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:17:07 ◼   ► - But I'm just saying, you know,

01:17:08 ◼   ► what if you had an unplugged keyboard

01:17:09 ◼   ► and you're like, here's my keyboard.

01:17:11 ◼   ► And it was like, great, I'll type for you.

01:17:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know. - I don't know.

01:17:14 ◼   ► - I don't know if it does that.

01:17:15 ◼   ► - I don't know.

01:17:16 ◼   ► - I don't know if it does that.

01:17:17 ◼   ► - Or the virtual thing, right?

01:17:18 ◼   ► Which is like, I'm just at a table here,

01:17:19 ◼   ► but I'm gonna do a hand gesture

01:17:20 ◼   ► and it's gonna make a virtual keyboard

01:17:22 ◼   ► come down in front of me.

01:17:23 ◼   ► At which point I can type on the table

01:17:26 ◼   ► and it knows what the keys are that I'm pressing.

01:17:29 ◼   ► That would be the other way you can do it.

01:17:31 ◼   ► - And Savva wrote, and to say recently,

01:17:32 ◼   ► you were discussing Tim Cook's legacy.

01:17:35 ◼   ► And I think we were talking about that

01:17:36 ◼   ► in the sense of the headset, right?

01:17:38 ◼   ► Of like, could this be the thing where he's like,

01:17:41 ◼   ► does this huge thing, it's like an iPhone-like thing,

01:17:43 ◼   ► and that's his legacy.

01:17:44 ◼   ► Why do you think AirPods are not discussed more

01:17:47 ◼   ► as a game-changing product

01:17:49 ◼   ► that were released under his leadership?

01:17:51 ◼   ► They have pretty much single-handedly changed

01:17:53 ◼   ► the headphone market with budget players

01:17:55 ◼   ► getting into true wireless earphones as well.

01:17:57 ◼   ► - I don't know. - It's an accessory.

01:17:59 ◼   ► That's why. - It's an accessory.

01:18:01 ◼   ► And so people don't think of it the same way

01:18:03 ◼   ► as they think of the platforms.

01:18:04 ◼   ► It's absolutely a very successful product.

01:18:07 ◼   ► It wasn't the first at what it did,

01:18:09 ◼   ► but it did it so well that it popularized

01:18:11 ◼   ► the whole category, you know, and that's the truth of it.

01:18:14 ◼   ► And it still does very, very well.

01:18:16 ◼   ► I talked to some people who say,

01:18:19 ◼   ► it's not even the best deal,

01:18:20 ◼   ► you should just get these others.

01:18:21 ◼   ► But if you're on Apple platforms,

01:18:23 ◼   ► it actually is the best at it, right?

01:18:25 ◼   ► And they've, but yeah,

01:18:26 ◼   ► they've also transformed the market around it.

01:18:28 ◼   ► So yeah, they're great.

01:18:30 ◼   ► and they will be on the list of his achievements.

01:18:31 ◼   ► I think the reason that they're not more widely

01:18:34 ◼   ► viewed that way is that they're an accessory

01:18:36 ◼   ► that lives inside an ecosystem.

01:18:38 ◼   ► And part of the secret of the product

01:18:40 ◼   ► is the extra stuff they put in their platform to support it.

01:18:43 ◼   ► You know, it's complicated, but it's definitely on his,

01:18:48 ◼   ► it's gonna be on his resume when, well, not a resume,

01:18:50 ◼   ► 'cause that means he's looking for another job,

01:18:51 ◼   ► on his, carved into his statue on the campus,

01:18:56 ◼   ► the Apple campus or whatever, when he retires.

01:18:59 ◼   ► Because I would say that like, even for Steve Jobs, people don't mention the iPod as much.

01:19:05 ◼   ► You know, and like the iPod is a similar thing to AirPods.

01:19:08 ◼   ► If like there was a market, but Apple came in and owned the market and everyone wanted

01:19:13 ◼   ► that one thing.

01:19:14 ◼   ► Like people tend to talk about the Mac and the iPhone, maybe the iPad, and then maybe

01:19:18 ◼   ► the iPod.

01:19:19 ◼   ► And so like, you know, there might be a time when we're like, oh, under Tim Cook's leadership,

01:19:24 ◼   ► it was the Apple Watch, the headset and AirPods.

01:19:28 ◼   ► they're not like the new computing platform, right?

01:19:32 ◼   ► Like that's what we're talking about

01:19:34 ◼   ► when talking about these legacy, big, huge legacy items

01:19:37 ◼   ► of like, oh, you change the way people use computers

01:19:41 ◼   ► is slightly different to,

01:19:43 ◼   ► you change the way that people listen to audio,

01:19:45 ◼   ► which is like, look, AirPods are one of these things

01:19:49 ◼   ► that when I first saw them,

01:19:51 ◼   ► I just thought there's no way it could work.

01:19:54 ◼   ► And so like, it really is like,

01:19:56 ◼   ► If I'm thinking back to MacNail,

01:19:58 ◼   ► it is the most potentially jobsy thing

01:20:03 ◼   ► under Cook's leadership of like,

01:20:05 ◼   ► there's no way that can work.

01:20:07 ◼   ► People aren't gonna understand it.

01:20:09 ◼   ► People are gonna think they're silly.

01:20:11 ◼   ► It's not gonna happen.

01:20:12 ◼   ► And then in a few years, absolutely dominant.

01:20:17 ◼   ► You know, like I don't know what it is,

01:20:18 ◼   ► but there's like people say you could break it out

01:20:20 ◼   ► and it would be a Fortune 500 company of its own,

01:20:22 ◼   ► like AirPods just on their own.

01:20:24 ◼   ► I think that's correct.

01:20:26 ◼   ► It may even be more than that.

01:20:27 ◼   ► But yeah, so it's a huge thing,

01:20:31 ◼   ► but I just don't think people consider it

01:20:34 ◼   ► as like a legacy product as such, right?

01:20:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think, and that may not be fair,

01:20:41 ◼   ► but that's the truth of it, so yeah.

01:20:44 ◼   ► - And hey, if the headset doesn't work out,

01:20:45 ◼   ► maybe that's what we would think of it as the AirPods,

01:20:47 ◼   ► the AirPods Z, which is no joke.

01:20:50 ◼   ► - Apple Watch and AirPods.

01:20:51 ◼   ► - Thank you so much for listening

01:20:54 ◼   ► to this episode of Upgrade.

01:20:55 ◼   ► If you would like to send us your feedback, your follow up, your ask upgrade questions,

01:20:59 ◼   ► your snow talk questions, go to upgradefeedback.com and you can fill out our lovely form there.

01:21:05 ◼   ► Until next week's episode you can check out Jason's writing over at SixColors.com, hear

01:21:09 ◼   ► his podcast at TheIncomparable.com and here on RelayFM.

01:21:21 ◼   ► You can listen to my podcasts here on Relay FM, check out my work as well over at cortexbrand.com.

01:21:27 ◼   ► We're both on Mastodon, you can find Jason at JasonL on zeppelin.flights.

01:21:33 ◼   ► You can find me on Mike.social at iMike and we have an account for the show on relayfm.social.

01:21:40 ◼   ► Is that it?

01:21:41 ◼   ► Relayfm.social.

01:21:42 ◼   ► Is that how we do that?

01:21:43 ◼   ► Relayfm.social.

01:21:44 ◼   ► That's what it is.

01:21:45 ◼   ► That's how we did it.

01:21:46 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:21:47 ◼   ► Well, there wasn't, I think this was all Steven.

01:21:49 ◼   ► I don't really pay attention to that one so much.

01:21:52 ◼   ► Maybe that makes me a bad co-founder.

01:21:54 ◼   ► - It's upgrade@relayfm.social, check it out.

01:21:57 ◼   ► - We are @upgrade on relayfm.social.

01:22:01 ◼   ► - That's it, you nailed it.

01:22:02 ◼   ► - Thank you to our members who support us of Upgrade Plus.

01:22:05 ◼   ► Thank you to ExpressVPN and Ooni

01:22:07 ◼   ► for their support of this week's episode.

01:22:09 ◼   ► But most of all, thank you for listening.

01:22:11 ◼   ► Until next time, say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:22:14 ◼   ► - Goodbye, Mike Hurley.

01:22:15 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:22:17 ◼   ► [ Music ]

01:22:21 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]