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Upgrade

452: Schrödinger's Killer App

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode 452. Today's show is brought to you by ZocDoc,

00:00:16   Electric and Setapp. My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snow. Hi Jason!

00:00:21   Hi Mike, how are you?

00:00:23   I'm pretty good, I'm pretty good. I have a Snowtalk question for you.

00:00:26   Oh good.

00:00:27   comes from Sims and Sims wants to know, Jason, what is your go-to fast food restaurant and is this different on road trips?

00:00:35   I don't eat a lot of fast food, but my current, there's a small California chain called Starbird that does like chicken tenders and chicken wings and stuff like that

00:00:50   and you know, fried chicken sandwiches.

00:00:53   And there's one exit up the freeway from here.

00:00:56   I've been there a lot lately.

00:01:00   So Starbird may be my favorite right now,

00:01:03   just of the moment.

00:01:05   - This looks nice. - Enjoy it.

00:01:07   It's good, it's really good.

00:01:09   And they've got like, you know, you can order ahead

00:01:11   and or you order like with a touchscreen when you get there

00:01:16   or you can sit outside on a nice day, like, yeah, that's good.

00:01:18   So sometimes we'll get that coming home from curling.

00:01:22   See, dropping the curling references again,

00:01:24   just on the way home, just 'cause we curl over like lunch.

00:01:27   We get over and it's lunchtime, so you gotta,

00:01:30   there is, however, also near the curling place,

00:01:32   an In-N-Out, and since Simms asked about road trips,

00:01:36   In-N-Out is my go-to In-N-Out burger,

00:01:40   which is mostly a Western US phenomenon.

00:01:42   It's my go-to for road trips.

00:01:44   Partially, I mean, I like it a lot.

00:01:48   We actually have one in Mill Valley, not far from my house,

00:01:51   and I almost never go there.

00:01:53   But when we're on a road trip, it's a nice,

00:01:57   it's a fun treat to get a burger from In-N-Out.

00:02:00   It's road trip, indeed,

00:02:02   in the truest sense of the word.

00:02:04   - Did we eat that In-N-Out during the life-giving episode,

00:02:09   where we recorded outside?

00:02:11   - We had In-N-Out for that, right?

00:02:13   - Yeah.

00:02:14   - Yeah, that was from our In-N-Out, of course.

00:02:16   - That was from that In-N-Out?

00:02:17   from the outdoor bird chirping episode of Upgrade last June.

00:02:22   Yes, absolutely.

00:02:23   - Probably my favorite episode of Upgrade ever,

00:02:26   because just what it meant to me in that moment.

00:02:30   - It was like we salvaged a little something

00:02:33   out of your terrible, terrible trip.

00:02:35   And I think we can say this exclusively announcing it here,

00:02:40   if we get a chance to record an episode of Upgrade

00:02:43   at my house again,

00:02:45   we will probably record it outside just because.

00:02:49   - We're gonna do that. - Because we can.

00:02:50   - Yeah, we're gonna do that.

00:02:51   This is the hope.

00:02:53   I'm planning on going out,

00:02:56   and we're planning on staying a little bit longer

00:02:58   in San Francisco afterwards.

00:03:00   So I'll come down to you

00:03:02   and we're gonna record outside again, I think,

00:03:03   'cause that was just good memories.

00:03:06   Maybe this time we can make "Starbird"

00:03:07   the official lunch of that episode.

00:03:12   - Pretty good, it's pretty tasty.

00:03:14   Just need Apple to put those dates out there.

00:03:17   Come on, come on.

00:03:18   - This is Tim, Mike.

00:03:19   I was very busy last week.

00:03:20   I wasn't able to announce it,

00:03:22   but I'll take it under advisement for the next time.

00:03:24   Tim out.

00:03:25   - Thanks, Tim.

00:03:26   If you would like to send in a Snow Talk question

00:03:28   of your own to help us open an episode of Upgrade,

00:03:31   just go to upgradefeedback.com and submit yours.

00:03:34   I have some follow-up for you, Jason Snow.

00:03:37   We had quite a lot of people write in,

00:03:40   which is not typical for follow-up for the show.

00:03:43   like sometimes we get little bits of Bob's links and stuff,

00:03:45   but I've got a lot of people who had some things to say

00:03:48   about our previous episodes.

00:03:49   So I wanna go through some of those.

00:03:51   The first was Ramon who said,

00:03:53   "Over the years and now recently again,

00:03:56   there's been a lot of discussion

00:03:57   about the iPad as the future of computing."

00:03:59   We spoke a lot about it on last week's episode.

00:04:02   - We did.

00:04:02   - Ramon goes on to say,

00:04:03   "Why is it that the industry

00:04:05   isn't giving Microsoft the recognition

00:04:07   for already introducing the future of computing

00:04:10   with their Surface products?

00:04:12   What makes the iPad different?

00:04:13   - All right, snarky answer is,

00:04:15   why isn't the industry giving Microsoft credit

00:04:17   for Windows Phone?

00:04:18   It was there way ahead of the iPhone.

00:04:20   It's kind of the same though.

00:04:22   I mean, it is kind of the same.

00:04:24   The answer is so for Surface.

00:04:25   'Cause I also got this comment

00:04:28   in a sort of different direction from somebody

00:04:30   who was talking about our complaints and said something like,

00:04:34   "Have you used a Surface notebook where it's detachable?

00:04:37   "It's not a good experience."

00:04:39   I'm like, okay, my response to that person,

00:04:42   and they took it in stride

00:04:43   and they actually reacted positively was,

00:04:46   the iPad Pro with a magic keyboard on it

00:04:49   seems like a pretty good convertible laptop to me, right?

00:04:54   - Part of the problem with those convertible surfaces

00:04:57   where they're like the Surface Book, which I think,

00:04:59   I don't even think they make anymore, or like that--

00:05:01   - Oh, you're right, it's the Surface Book.

00:05:02   Surface Laptop's just a laptop.

00:05:03   It's like, it's the one that's got the like,

00:05:04   the weird multi-thing hinge, and they're trying to--

00:05:07   - Where you can take it out.

00:05:08   - Yeah, 'cause you gotta put,

00:05:09   you gotta put the, in a detachable tablet,

00:05:12   let's just set the terms here.

00:05:14   You have to, if it's a laptop that's also can be a tablet,

00:05:17   you have to have the processor and battery,

00:05:20   at least some, in the thing, in the screen,

00:05:23   because you toss away the keyboard.

00:05:26   The best way to think of it is the iPad, right?

00:05:28   The iPad has everything it needs to do its thing

00:05:31   in its little slab keyboard, or slab display.

00:05:35   And then if you attach a keyboard to it,

00:05:37   and the physics are tricky,

00:05:38   which is why there's the cantilever thing

00:05:40   and why they've done,

00:05:42   Apple now has done a kickstand on the low end one

00:05:44   and Microsoft has experimented with kickstands.

00:05:47   There's weird physics at work there

00:05:49   in terms of getting the forces to all kind of align.

00:05:51   - But I think one of the things

00:05:52   that has made those products really difficult

00:05:54   and not work very well

00:05:55   is that they were running like Intel processors.

00:05:58   And so they just couldn't be efficient enough.

00:06:00   And I think that's the difference

00:06:02   between what some of the stuff Microsoft's done

00:06:05   and what Apple has done with the iPad

00:06:07   is that it's incredibly powerful in that box.

00:06:10   - I'll take it a little further too.

00:06:12   I do think there are engineering challenges

00:06:14   and like, well, we can't,

00:06:15   like can we put one brain that's low powered

00:06:17   behind the screen and then put another brain and we switch?

00:06:20   And like, there's lots of discussions like that

00:06:21   probably going on.

00:06:22   I'd say the other though,

00:06:23   to get to Ramon's core question,

00:06:26   I think the difference is that Microsoft struggled

00:06:30   to create one version of Windows

00:06:34   that would work in both modes.

00:06:36   And I think Apple has had it easy

00:06:39   by having iPad OS and Mac OS be separate.

00:06:42   And that's because Apple had the iPhone

00:06:45   and it was separate from the Mac.

00:06:47   So Apple, that was an advantage.

00:06:49   Microsoft's great advantage is Windows, right?

00:06:51   That they have Windows.

00:06:53   The disadvantage is they were trying to adapt Windows

00:06:56   for touch, but also recognize that most Windows users

00:07:00   will never use it as a touch tablet, right?

00:07:04   So you don't wanna subvert the Windows experience,

00:07:08   but you wanna have a good touch experience.

00:07:11   And at least in my experiences with these things,

00:07:13   and I do have a Surface,

00:07:15   like my Surface, I find almost unusable as an iPad, right?

00:07:21   Like you can kind of fake it for some very similar stuff,

00:07:25   but basically no.

00:07:26   But if I snap the little magnet keyboard on it, it's a PC.

00:07:30   - Good to go.

00:07:31   - And you can use it as a PC.

00:07:33   So I think that's Microsoft's challenge.

00:07:35   So when we were talking about like,

00:07:37   my idea of like, what if there's an iPad mode

00:07:40   that a touch Mac goes into,

00:07:42   or a Mac mode that an iPad goes into,

00:07:44   like, well, what happens there?

00:07:46   I mean, the beauty of it is that Apple has already built

00:07:49   the iPad interface, that's a touch first interface.

00:07:53   I don't, I agree with the people who argue

00:07:56   that blowing the Mac interface up

00:07:59   to making it like a touch first interface

00:08:01   isn't gonna work.

00:08:03   Again, like with Windows, you can get by probably.

00:08:08   Like I've done that on screen sharing

00:08:10   with a Mac with my iPad.

00:08:12   I can kind of drive the OS.

00:08:14   It's not great, but you can kind of do it.

00:08:16   But like, but the iPad OS interface

00:08:19   is a great touch tablet interface.

00:08:21   And that was why my argument was,

00:08:24   not that it would be easy,

00:08:25   but the smart thing to do might be to consider it

00:08:28   essentially two different modes.

00:08:29   And when you either you snap a keyboard

00:08:32   a trackpad on an iPad and say let's go into Mac mode and it becomes a MacBook Air or you

00:08:39   pull the screen off of a future Mac laptop and it becomes an iPad more or less in that

00:08:47   moment. And again, what does that mean? Is it running iPadOS? Is it just running iPad

00:08:51   apps? I mean, there's a lot of hazy like to be figured out, but as people who listen to

00:08:57   the show regularly will know, I have very little patience for people who seem to simultaneously

00:09:02   think that Apple can do anything but not that one thing that you suggest. I'm not saying

00:09:06   Apple is perfect, but I'm thinking they're very capable of doing a lot of stuff if they

00:09:09   put their mind to it. Nothing should be considered out of bounds and impossible for Apple to

00:09:14   do, especially since it's adapting their own existing products. Anyway, so I think that

00:09:19   Microsoft's challenge was always that, I mean, it's an echo of the Steve Ballmer era challenge

00:09:26   in general, which is Windows, Windows, Windows, Windows. And so like they did that Metro interface

00:09:32   that they unveiled way back when was like a really awesome touch prominent interface.

00:09:38   And I remember I was there when they unveiled it at the D conference and I was like, "Oh

00:09:43   wow, Microsoft is really coming hard for the iPad." And the end result was that they started

00:09:48   walking it back almost immediately. In the demo literally, they were like, "Let's flip

00:09:52   over to Office," which is just in a standard Windows interface. And I'm like, "Oh guys,

00:09:56   what did you do?" And they spent the next few years walking it all the way back because

00:10:01   Windows was too important.

00:10:05   And so that's my take on Surface is that it isn't...

00:10:09   You can give them credit, like you can give Bill Gates credit for saying, "Let's put computers

00:10:13   inside phones," but it's not quite right.

00:10:19   And the iPad had the advantage of coming out of iOS and being just a pure touch interface

00:10:25   that didn't have to serve the Mac OS audience at that point.

00:10:30   - I will say to Ramon's point,

00:10:32   I think it does make sense to,

00:10:35   like if we're gonna have that conversation

00:10:37   we had last week,

00:10:38   I actually do wish I would have mentioned Surface

00:10:40   at some point of like, here is,

00:10:42   how well they're doing it kind of doesn't matter for me.

00:10:46   It's like this is more the type of area

00:10:49   I want Apple to push towards.

00:10:52   - Sure, I did mention PCs that have been experimenting

00:10:56   with different use cases and design styles

00:11:00   for the last decade plus.

00:11:01   So that was my nod, 'cause it's not just Surface, right?

00:11:05   It's not just Surface.

00:11:05   There are a lot of PC companies that make convertibles

00:11:09   in all sorts of super weird ways.

00:11:11   And so Surface is an example of a convertible,

00:11:14   and yeah, it's the platform owner, so it's important,

00:11:18   but we can cite them.

00:11:19   But there are lots of PC makers who've made super weird,

00:11:23   mostly not quite right,

00:11:25   but interesting convertible devices that run Windows.

00:11:30   - On the same topic, the iPad topic,

00:11:33   Mathaus wrote in with something,

00:11:35   a couple of people wrote in with this,

00:11:36   I saw some comments like this and mastered on as well.

00:11:39   It says, "I think you're stuck with the idea

00:11:41   that Pro in iPad Pro means more akin to MacBook Pro.

00:11:46   For many artists, the iPad Pro is a critical tool

00:11:48   for their work.

00:11:50   Other auxiliary features like file management adjust that.

00:11:53   there to enable the artistic workflow of moving with images.

00:11:57   So my initial read on this is like I make the same criticism here

00:12:03   when Apple seems to suggest that the most important pro customers

00:12:08   for the Mac are video producers, right?

00:12:10   Like, oh, here's the MacBook Pro and it does this for video

00:12:13   and this for video and for Final Cut, for video, like it annoys me.

00:12:17   Like similarly, when Apple does a lot of marketing around the iPad Pro

00:12:22   as for artists, for illustrators.

00:12:25   I think tailoring your pro product

00:12:28   to just one customer segment, either in features or marketing,

00:12:32   doesn't really make it a pro product.

00:12:34   It would make it, instead of iPad Pro,

00:12:36   iPad Art or MacBook Video.

00:12:40   Just because there is a type of pro that uses it,

00:12:43   that's fantastic.

00:12:44   But the point that we're making is the same

00:12:47   that we make for the MacBook Pro.

00:12:49   This needs to serve developers

00:12:51   as well as it serves video producers,

00:12:53   as well as it serves writers, artists,

00:12:57   and on and on and on.

00:12:58   - Yeah, it is, I think that part of the challenge is

00:13:02   Apple doesn't want to segment,

00:13:04   and this is what you just said,

00:13:05   doesn't want to segment a product

00:13:07   so that it serves a tiny market, right?

00:13:09   It is meant to be more broad than that.

00:13:11   Also, I disagree with the idea

00:13:14   that we're stuck with the idea that Pro means MacBook Pro,

00:13:16   especially since I kept referring to the iPad Pro

00:13:19   as having the same hardware as the MacBook Air.

00:13:21   By the way, you can do professional work on the MacBook Air.

00:13:23   My point was more, what is Apple spending time on?

00:13:27   'Cause if Apple wanted to spend time on features for artists

00:13:31   like increase, offering a Mac,

00:13:34   the advantage of the iPad Pro

00:13:36   is that it's got the higher refresh rate

00:13:37   and the nicer screen.

00:13:38   And so it's gonna be nicer for artists than the iPad Air.

00:13:41   But like, I feel like there are a lot of advanced

00:13:43   iPad features that again, are trying to get toward the Mac

00:13:48   but not quite getting there.

00:13:50   And like, are artists really served by stage manager

00:13:53   and external display support?

00:13:55   Like, I feel like if you were arguing for artists,

00:13:57   you could say, what if they made a better iPad Air

00:13:59   that had a nicer screen with a faster refresh rate

00:14:02   for the Apple Pencil and for the screen itself?

00:14:04   And that would be, that is an interesting product.

00:14:07   I would also say, there's a little bit of a taste here of,

00:14:11   but you know, but I like it.

00:14:12   It's like, well, great, that's great.

00:14:14   I'm trying to think of,

00:14:15   I'm not trying to think of me personally

00:14:18   and saying, why don't they make the perfect product for me?

00:14:20   I'm really not.

00:14:21   But I am using my experiences to say,

00:14:23   I'm wondering if their strategy here

00:14:26   has led them to a place that, again,

00:14:29   yes, people use the iPad Pro and like it,

00:14:31   but was this the right progression?

00:14:35   I'm also not saying maybe,

00:14:36   when I say that maybe the iPad Pro was a mistake,

00:14:38   I'm not saying maybe serving artists

00:14:39   with a nice tablet was a mistake.

00:14:41   It's not what I'm saying.

00:14:42   I'm saying I wonder if Apple's original plan was that the iPad was the future of computing

00:14:47   and the iPad Pro as a name was the vehicle for that.

00:14:51   And then very rapidly they realized that the Mac was going to be great and on Apple Silicon

00:14:56   and it was going to go on forever and that the iPad, well what is it now?

00:15:01   And I think the iPad Pro suffers from Apple not really quite knowing what the end point

00:15:06   of the iPad Pro is.

00:15:07   I'm not saying that the iPad, I got a lot of feedback from people who seem to have not

00:15:13   heard us or read, like they read Federico's summary on Mastodon of what we said and didn't

00:15:19   listen to what we said.

00:15:20   That was the issue.

00:15:21   We got like a lot of tweets because Federico, replies, posts, whatever you call them, because

00:15:25   Federico said something.

00:15:26   I don't think there's people even though upgrade existed, so like whatever.

00:15:29   So that's my overall comment is I think we were pretty clear last week about the fact

00:15:34   that we're not saying that the iPad is bad.

00:15:37   I love my iPad, I'll say it again,

00:15:39   I love my iPad Pro and I use it every day

00:15:41   and I do use it to get actual work done.

00:15:43   We're trying to think about the bigger picture here

00:15:45   about sort of like this feeling that the iPad

00:15:49   at the high end, and again,

00:15:51   there's literally in that Mac world column,

00:15:52   'cause I also got feedback from people

00:15:54   who didn't read the Mac world column,

00:15:55   but were tweeting about it or posting a mastodon about it.

00:15:59   In the Mac world column, I specifically say like,

00:16:02   even if Apple were to try a merger of some kind

00:16:06   where there's a device that is Mac-like

00:16:08   and iPad-like at once,

00:16:10   I don't envision the Mac going away

00:16:13   or the iPad going away.

00:16:15   Like I think Apple's,

00:16:17   I think the core iPad market is not the iPad Pro, right?

00:16:21   It's people using the iPad and the iPad Air.

00:16:23   And that I don't think is gonna change

00:16:27   because that, in fact, my argument is sort of,

00:16:30   if the iPad isn't ever gonna be the future of computing,

00:16:33   maybe Apple should focus more

00:16:35   on making the iPad Air awesome as a just a touch tablet

00:16:40   with, yeah, you can attach a keyboard to it,

00:16:41   but it's not the future of computing.

00:16:42   The stakes are a lot lower rather than continuing

00:16:46   to sort of like build these big software projects

00:16:48   that are making sort of Mac-like features.

00:16:51   Like I love the idea that the iPad drives

00:16:53   the external display now with stage manager,

00:16:55   but like who's using that?

00:16:58   What tiny percentage of the iPad user base

00:17:01   is using that proper external display support

00:17:04   for multiple windows with a keyboard and a mouse.

00:17:06   Not just like attaching it to a projector,

00:17:08   but like the real stage manager thing.

00:17:10   And that's an example.

00:17:11   Or putting more into files, which is not the finder,

00:17:16   but it is something.

00:17:18   Like, is it worth doing more investment in that?

00:17:21   That's sort of my big picture thing.

00:17:23   But yes, I think a lot of people didn't listen.

00:17:26   And I'm not saying that Mathaus is one of them,

00:17:29   but I'm saying we got a lot of feedback that was like,

00:17:31   but what about the iPad?

00:17:32   Why do you hate the iPad?

00:17:33   And it's like, we didn't say any of that.

00:17:34   But I did hear from people who basically said,

00:17:38   "I love the iPad Pro, and I'm glad they have these features,

00:17:40   "but I don't want it to be a Mac."

00:17:42   And it's like, and I appreciate that.

00:17:44   I appreciate that.

00:17:45   Again, I'm not, I don't think I agree,

00:17:49   but I don't strongly disagree.

00:17:51   I think I'm more trying to ponder the lost,

00:17:54   it's almost like the opportunity cost of if you had,

00:17:57   if Apple had known at the moment

00:18:00   that it started work on the iPad Pro,

00:18:04   that the Mac was not gonna be a legacy platform

00:18:07   that faded into obscurity,

00:18:09   but was going to go to Apple Silicon

00:18:11   and was gonna be very popular.

00:18:14   And I have heard more that,

00:18:18   'cause again, I said last week,

00:18:19   we didn't actually know that, it's just a feeling.

00:18:22   I have heard more hazy, vague suggestions

00:18:26   that that is true, (laughs)

00:18:27   that they really did not think about the Mac

00:18:31   as anything more than a legacy product,

00:18:33   and then there was a shift.

00:18:35   So the opportunity cost of the iPad

00:18:37   being put up as being the future,

00:18:40   and that the iPad Pro being this vehicle

00:18:42   that they would invest a lot of effort in

00:18:44   on the hardware side, but especially on the software side

00:18:46   to sort of make it more Mac-like,

00:18:49   if they had known at that moment

00:18:53   that that wasn't the case,

00:18:55   and that the company was never again going to be

00:19:00   behind that as an idea, right?

00:19:03   That I think they would have made different decisions.

00:19:05   And I think that a lot of the people who have been working

00:19:07   on the iPad the last few years to keep pushing it upward

00:19:10   and upward are doing it for an organization as a whole

00:19:15   that doesn't share that enthusiasm

00:19:19   that the people working on the product do

00:19:21   about this product.

00:19:22   'Cause I do think there's a disconnect, right?

00:19:24   I think people working on the iPad Pro are really excited

00:19:26   about the features that they're working on for the iPad Pro,

00:19:29   but I feel like culturally,

00:19:30   the company kind of moved on from that

00:19:33   and is really excited, as they should be,

00:19:35   about Macs running Apple Silicon instead.

00:19:38   So I don't know, it's complicated.

00:19:40   And a lot of that nuance vanishes on social media, so be it.

00:19:45   - Couple of other ones.

00:19:46   A follow up before we move on, as comes from Ken,

00:19:49   who says, "Regarding the braided solo loop

00:19:51   stretching out over time,

00:19:53   It does shrink like other fabric.

00:19:55   You can wash it and then while wet it,

00:19:57   dry it for a few minutes with some heat.

00:20:00   Ken says, "I used a hairdryer for five minutes

00:20:02   and that was enough to shrink it down

00:20:03   so it fit more snug again."

00:20:05   - I'm concerned that the elastic is actually stretched,

00:20:08   but I have, and I've tried this before

00:20:10   and didn't seem to have much, but I didn't put,

00:20:14   I didn't put the heat, rapid heat drying step on there

00:20:18   because there's always the fear that you're gonna ruin it.

00:20:20   But at this point, my beloved orange solo loop

00:20:25   is too loose for me.

00:20:27   I actually, and I wore it on my whole trip to New Zealand.

00:20:31   And it was just the whole time I was like,

00:20:33   it's a little too loose now.

00:20:34   And also they do as, I think I was listening to a podcast.

00:20:39   I can't remember, was it connected?

00:20:40   They pick up dirt, light bands pick up dirt.

00:20:44   And so that orange band looks kinda dusky and dim right now.

00:20:49   So it needs a proper wash.

00:20:51   So I think I'm gonna follow Ken's advice

00:20:52   and give it a proper wash.

00:20:54   And then I'm gonna give it a proper heat dry

00:20:56   and see if that will contract the fibers,

00:21:00   the cotton fibers, at least, and pull it together

00:21:05   so that its base is a little bit tighter

00:21:10   so that maybe it'll be not as loose on my wrist.

00:21:13   We'll see.

00:21:14   I'm gonna give it a go because honestly,

00:21:16   at this point, if I ruin it, so be it.

00:21:18   It's not really wearable.

00:21:19   It's at the very extreme edge of being wearable

00:21:21   because it's so loose.

00:21:23   - And also Apple is adding local announcer support

00:21:28   for the next season of Friday Night Baseball.

00:21:32   And it is no longer available for free.

00:21:35   If you wanna watch the Friday Night Baseball games,

00:21:37   you now need an Apple TV+ subscription.

00:21:39   - Right, we knew this was coming.

00:21:40   I'm actually surprised they went through the whole year

00:21:42   for free last year, but now first one's free, I guess, season.

00:21:46   So TV Plus subscribers will get access

00:21:49   to Friday Night Baseball.

00:21:50   And I should mention Friday Night Baseball, again,

00:21:54   it's not gonna be on local TV.

00:21:56   It's a national and international exclusive for Apple,

00:22:00   which means it won't be like the cases where,

00:22:02   oh, one of my local teams games is on ESPN,

00:22:05   but it's also on my local channel.

00:22:06   It's gonna be Apple only just as it was last year.

00:22:09   However, what they're doing, which I think is great,

00:22:13   and it shows that they listen to the fan criticism

00:22:16   of their program is they're going to do the game with their national announcers, it's

00:22:21   people basically, it's MLB network announcers who are going to do the commentary. A lot

00:22:26   of people, that makes them sad because they love the voices of their local team. Apple

00:22:31   is going to provide, as they're doing for home teams on MLS, they're going to provide

00:22:36   for home and away teams, radio audio, so that your home radio broadcast of the baseball

00:22:42   game will be play will be optional instead of the announcers that Apple is

00:22:48   providing. So if I want to watch a Giants game on Friday Night Baseball and I

00:22:52   don't want to hear their announcers I can flip it over and I'm gonna get the

00:22:55   Giants radio broadcast with Apple's beautiful picture. So that's an option. I

00:23:01   love that they added that. The only - there's a weird restriction - Texas

00:23:08   Rangers games, it'll only be home games. I don't know why. I don't know why. It's

00:23:12   It's very weird. And if you're in Canada, because this is US and Canada only, I should

00:23:17   say, but if you're in Canada, you only get the Blue Jays radio audio. The other radio

00:23:24   is not available to you. So if you want to watch a game featuring the Giants and you

00:23:28   listen to the Giants broadcasters and you're in Canada, you're out of luck. And the rest

00:23:31   of the world doesn't get this feature.

00:23:33   Me in the UK, I can't choose to listen to…

00:23:36   You don't get this feature. It seems to be a licensing thing where they have the, they

00:23:40   basically have the ability to, they've licensed this to Apple, maybe Major League Baseball

00:23:45   actually stepped up and said, "We'll give you access to this, but only in the US, and

00:23:48   only the Blue Jays in Canada," and not the Rangers away games, I don't know what that's

00:23:53   about at all, but something happened because they're able to do that, but it's a US only

00:23:57   essentially feature.

00:23:58   But I think for me, the interesting observation part of that is what you just said, because

00:24:03   one of the things we've spoken about is like Apple maybe shies away from sports stuff because

00:24:07   because it gets complicated rights-wise, right?

00:24:09   Like if, like with the MLS stuff

00:24:12   and with the Friday Night Baseball,

00:24:13   it's like they can get it and show it worldwide.

00:24:16   And so we wondered, like, you know,

00:24:17   I saw a rumor that apparently they're going after,

00:24:20   someone's saying they're going after the rights

00:24:22   for the English Premier League.

00:24:24   And- - Yeah, someone said that.

00:24:25   - And I wasn't sure if that would be possible again,

00:24:28   because like they're only gonna get it in certain markets.

00:24:30   But while this isn't that,

00:24:32   this is an example of like Apple's willing to do something

00:24:35   which has very weird restrictions

00:24:37   from a rights perspective.

00:24:39   And so maybe this is them dipping their toe in that water,

00:24:41   which if they wanna keep moving into sports,

00:24:44   they're not gonna keep getting deals

00:24:45   like the Major League Soccer deal.

00:24:48   They are gonna get-- - It's worldwide all rights?

00:24:49   - Yeah, they're gonna get,

00:24:51   'cause that's really the only one that exists.

00:24:53   (laughs)

00:24:54   - And that's, right, so the rumor about NFL Sunday Ticket,

00:24:56   which ended up going to YouTube TV,

00:24:58   was that Apple wanted to do stuff

00:25:00   and that the NFL was not interested in doing.

00:25:04   here, I can't decide whether this was an expediency thing of like, well, the

00:25:08   rights are complicated, but we can get the U.S. to work for you, like Major League

00:25:11   Baseball would say to Apple, and Apple's like, okay, let's try it. And it might even

00:25:14   be, let's try it, and if there's a lot of uptake, then maybe we'll talk about doing

00:25:17   this worldwide, but like, let's just carve out the rights, let's pay the, write the

00:25:22   check, or make the amendment for the U.S. for this season, and we'll see how it

00:25:25   goes, something like that. There was a, another story this week that I want to

00:25:31   least mentioned in passing, which is related to sports rights, which is that Apple and

00:25:36   Amazon are both rumored to be talking to the Pac-12 conference about their TV package.

00:25:41   They're the last college football conference right now to have an open contract for the

00:25:46   rest of the decade. And so they're talking to ESPN and apparently Fox and Apple and Amazon.

00:25:54   And there's a story there about how Apple and Amazon are negotiating, but I forget what

00:26:00   the actual quote is. It's something like, uh, yeah, here it is. "The discussion about

00:26:06   how each week's Pac-12 football games are drafted by the media partners, typically"

00:26:12   — which is like, who gets what games for a given week, in what time slots — "typically

00:26:16   only takes about an hour with traditional partners like ESPN and Fox. The same conversation

00:26:20   apparently took a week with the streamers, Apple and Amazon. They went back to their

00:26:24   lawyers, returned with questions, went back to the lawyers, returned with questions. You

00:26:28   get the idea. That's a report from JohnKazano.com.

00:26:31   I also, there's a story that we didn't get to

00:26:33   that was originally in our notes here,

00:26:34   which is about Apple doing theatrical releases of movies

00:26:38   and needing a distributor. - No, I got it later on.

00:26:41   So, "Ruma Roundup."

00:26:43   We're gonna get to it in "Ruma Roundup."

00:26:44   - And it's the same story again, so we'll get there.

00:26:47   But like, this is the challenge with Apple and Amazon

00:26:52   is they're like weird, right?

00:26:57   Like, I mean, that's the bottom line

00:26:58   is these entertainment companies are like,

00:27:00   what are you talking about?

00:27:02   But the tech companies have their own take on it.

00:27:05   So I'll save those details for a room around it.

00:27:07   But I pulled up, since we're talking about sports rights,

00:27:09   I'll just mention here,

00:27:10   like this is an ongoing interesting thing

00:27:13   where the leagues, the entertainment partners

00:27:15   are all talking to these tech companies like Apple

00:27:17   and like they don't speak the same language quite.

00:27:21   So in Apple's case here, it is fascinating,

00:27:24   like you said, that this is a US and Canada-ish only feature,

00:27:29   which I'd say is counter to what Apple wants to do,

00:27:33   but obviously they felt,

00:27:34   well, this is our most important market,

00:27:36   let's just do it because they wanna try it out

00:27:41   and it's been a big source of criticism

00:27:43   and now they can blunt that criticism.

00:27:45   I also wonder long-term based on viewering stats,

00:27:48   if they might consider doing other languages

00:27:51   for their broadcast, right?

00:27:52   Like if it's very popular in Japan or in Korea,

00:27:56   would they consider having a Japanese

00:27:59   or Korean broadcast team

00:28:00   or just audio overlay of those games?

00:28:03   I don't know.

00:28:04   I don't know how popular it is

00:28:05   'cause it's what, Saturday morning baseball there,

00:28:10   but I don't know.

00:28:12   - Just kind of see how things go

00:28:15   as different markets get more popular or not.

00:28:17   - See how the, yeah.

00:28:18   We'll see how it's like with sports in general.

00:28:20   We'll see how the season goes.

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00:30:26   From a round-up time, as was rumored earlier on in today's episode, we'll start with this

00:30:36   one now.

00:30:43   Thomas Buckley and Luke Ashore at Bloomberg are reporting that Apple is planning to spend

00:30:48   a billion dollars a year to produce movies, and they are planning on putting them in theaters.

00:30:55   This includes some of the high profile movies already in production.

00:30:59   They're going to put those into theaters.

00:31:01   They already promised the director…

00:31:04   In some cases, like with the Martin Scorsese movie, they closed the deal by promising to

00:31:08   put them in theaters.

00:31:09   Netflix is like, "We're not going to do it.

00:31:11   We're just not going to do it."

00:31:12   Apple's like, "We'll do it.

00:31:13   If that closes the deal, we'll do it.

00:31:14   We'll figure it out."

00:31:15   That one was with Paramount, and Paramount's going to handle the distribution for that

00:31:20   one, which is good because as Buckley and Shaw point out in their Bloomberg article,

00:31:25   Apple has no idea how to do this, they don't do this.

00:31:28   So one of the reasons that they found this information out

00:31:31   is they are going out to companies, distribution companies,

00:31:35   and being like, "Can you help us do this?"

00:31:38   Because it's complicated to put movies

00:31:40   into thousands of theaters,

00:31:41   which is apparently what they're doing.

00:31:43   A quote says, "The company has pledged to put movies

00:31:45   "in thousands of theaters for at least a month,

00:31:47   "though it hasn't finalized any plans."

00:31:50   So kind of assuming here, Oscars, right?

00:31:53   They got to do it for the Oscars anyway,

00:31:55   so why not do it and make a bit of money?

00:31:58   Apparently as well, the focus here will also

00:32:01   to kind of use this as a marketing tool for TV Plus.

00:32:06   - Yeah, absolutely.

00:32:07   'Cause you do, so the beauty of it is,

00:32:09   and this is, Lucas Shaw sort of made these points

00:32:11   in his excellent media column at Bloomberg,

00:32:14   is economical because you market the movie in theaters

00:32:19   and then you put it on streaming.

00:32:20   And so awareness is already there.

00:32:21   People have heard about it.

00:32:23   people know about the movie.

00:32:24   I know Julia Alexander and I have talked about this cycle

00:32:27   on downstream a little bit.

00:32:28   The idea that the advantage of going to theaters

00:32:31   isn't just that you may make money in theaters.

00:32:35   It's like another revenue stream

00:32:37   that is not to be sniffed at.

00:32:39   But it is a kind of a unified marketing plan

00:32:42   where you create a lot of awareness

00:32:44   when that thing is going into theaters,

00:32:46   not just to drive people into theaters,

00:32:48   but to also make it so that when it comes on your platform,

00:32:52   They're like, "Oh yeah, I meant to see that movie

00:32:54   or that movie looked interesting."

00:32:56   And that has great value because,

00:32:59   you know this, Mike, right?

00:33:00   Like, there are movies that happen and you're like, what?

00:33:04   That was a movie that happened?

00:33:06   And they're completely under your radar.

00:33:08   If you're not looking at the Netflix app

00:33:10   at the right time on the right day,

00:33:11   that movie has disappeared.

00:33:13   Or you're like, "That movie went to prime?

00:33:15   I have that and I didn't even know that movie was there."

00:33:19   That happens to me all the time now.

00:33:21   there was an Oscar nomination for a movie on Apple TV+

00:33:24   that I had literally never heard of.

00:33:27   It had been sitting on my Apple TV all that time.

00:33:29   I could have watched it,

00:33:30   but I didn't even know it existed.

00:33:31   So one way you can change that

00:33:35   for your Martin Scorsese movie or whatever

00:33:38   is by releasing it in theaters

00:33:40   and doing a marketing campaign for the theatrical release.

00:33:44   So there's lots of like,

00:33:45   it's a good move, not just for theatrical

00:33:49   to do the marketing for the theatrical release.

00:33:52   - And then the thing we talk about a lot,

00:33:54   which is very important, and it is that idea

00:33:57   of who does Apple wanna be, makes the creators feel good.

00:34:01   You made a movie, put it in cinemas, got big posters,

00:34:05   do the whole premiere, the whole nine yards,

00:34:09   and some of that stuff is done just so the people

00:34:11   that made the thing feel good about the thing

00:34:13   that they made, which is very valid, but it helps.

00:34:16   And if Apple want to continue to pull in people

00:34:20   like Martin Scorsese, this is a way to do that.

00:34:24   Like, well, oh no, don't go with such and such.

00:34:26   We're gonna put your movie in theaters.

00:34:28   And no, we're not just gonna do the two weeks

00:34:30   that we need for the Oscars.

00:34:32   We're gonna do it for a whole month, whole month.

00:34:35   - Yeah, six weeks, whatever it is.

00:34:37   Yeah, and they're closing deals.

00:34:40   They've definitely closed deals

00:34:45   because of this at some point.

00:34:47   But there is also a strategy in general that,

00:34:51   and again, we've talked about it a bit on downstream

00:34:53   and we'll be talking about it more over there too,

00:34:55   but like it's this idea that theatrical,

00:34:57   like what Lucas Shaw says is,

00:35:00   "Perhaps the biggest change I'm thinking

00:35:01   over the last six months

00:35:02   is what kind of movies can work theatrical."

00:35:04   Before the pandemic, studios were struggling

00:35:06   to get people to show up for anything but superheroes.

00:35:09   Coming out of the pandemic,

00:35:10   people started to worry about animation,

00:35:12   but the solid performance of films like Elvis,

00:35:16   Cocaine Bear, and The Woman King

00:35:18   has changed people's minds.

00:35:20   There's a feeling like theatrical is gonna,

00:35:23   it's not just for superhero movies,

00:35:25   there are other movies that can do well there.

00:35:27   So that's part of the strategy with this

00:35:29   because the fact is, every dollar you spend on that movie

00:35:33   and marketing that movie,

00:35:34   like you gotta get it back,

00:35:35   not just in the value to your streaming service,

00:35:38   but it's also like, if you can get money on theatrical,

00:35:41   again, you've made that movie more successful

00:35:44   by having it have the theatrical release

00:35:46   where there's box office.

00:35:47   And if you get a hit,

00:35:49   you got really good box office results,

00:35:51   that's good for you.

00:35:54   It is funny,

00:35:55   and now to get me back to what I was saying before

00:35:58   about dealing with streamers is weird.

00:36:00   What Lucas Shaw reported,

00:36:03   I thought this was a really nice way to report it,

00:36:07   which is that the,

00:36:09   Apple is shopping some of its projects on a one-off basis,

00:36:11   but it is looking for one of these studios to distribute,

00:36:15   to step up and be its distribution partner for a slate,

00:36:18   for all of Apple's movies.

00:36:20   It doesn't have any deals yet.

00:36:21   And here's the key line,

00:36:23   executives at some studios have expressed reservations

00:36:26   about Apple's approach, which I feel like, again,

00:36:31   that is tech giants are weird to entertainment giants.

00:36:36   And entertainment giants are weird to tech giants.

00:36:39   Their priorities are so different.

00:36:42   They come from different places.

00:36:43   And as we talked about a lot,

00:36:45   Netflix is Netflix.

00:36:49   They have to make money as Netflix.

00:36:51   That's their business.

00:36:53   Apple, right, like sells iPhones.

00:36:55   And then they also have their entertainment business.

00:36:57   So like Apple's priorities are not the priorities

00:37:01   of most of the partners for the entertainment industry.

00:37:05   And so it's weird, right?

00:37:07   It's weird, but it is interesting that Apple has gone,

00:37:11   they haven't made the deal yet,

00:37:12   but they have shifted gears from one-offs

00:37:16   because we gotta make Martin Scorsese happy

00:37:19   for a theatrical release,

00:37:21   to just saying we're shopping for a distribution partner.

00:37:24   That suggests to me that in the future,

00:37:27   many, if not all, Apple movie releases

00:37:31   will actually get a theatrical opening

00:37:33   before they go on Apple TV+.

00:37:36   - I mean, I wouldn't trust that idea anyway.

00:37:38   It's like when they started TV+,

00:37:41   they were working with production companies

00:37:44   and then they're like,

00:37:45   "Oh, we'll just set up our own production company."

00:37:47   Like, honestly, if they think this is something for them

00:37:50   in the long run,

00:37:51   I could imagine them just hiring some people to do it.

00:37:54   - I don't think Apple wants to get

00:37:55   into theatrical distribution as a business.

00:37:57   This feels to me like the kind of business,

00:37:59   this is like some of its other suppliers

00:38:02   where they're like,

00:38:02   they're just gonna work with Corning.

00:38:04   They're not gonna make their own glass.

00:38:06   They're gonna work with Corning.

00:38:06   This feels like a very specific thing

00:38:10   where there's preexisting deals with theater chains

00:38:13   from these distributors.

00:38:14   And it's like, they don't want this business, I think.

00:38:16   I mean, if they found,

00:38:18   ultimately if they felt like this was core

00:38:19   to their business, I think they would do that.

00:38:21   But this feels like kind of ancillary part

00:38:23   of a larger strategy.

00:38:24   So they'll probably just make a deal at some point,

00:38:28   although it's fascinating that everybody is speaking

00:38:30   a different language now, so it's unclear.

00:38:32   But it will be interesting to see,

00:38:34   this is the real big shift that's happened.

00:38:36   Once that quarter happened where Netflix lost money

00:38:39   and subscribers and everybody panicked

00:38:41   and it became the sort of like the end of the,

00:38:43   just spend as much money as you want for streaming world.

00:38:47   And we ended up in sort of a new act.

00:38:49   This is very much a piece of that, which is,

00:38:53   oh, we're not gonna just do streaming.

00:38:55   We will do theatrical 'cause it brings in some money.

00:38:57   And at this point, a little more money coming in

00:39:00   for all of these projects helps the business make sense.

00:39:04   And although Apple could just keep spending money

00:39:06   and losing money on all of its deals,

00:39:08   I think it's better for Apple

00:39:09   if it loses less money on those deals

00:39:13   by having some theatrical revenue.

00:39:14   So yeah, don't be surprised when you start seeing ads

00:39:19   for movies from Apple in theaters now.

00:39:23   That's gonna be weird, but I think it's gonna happen.

00:39:26   - Shifting gears, but still we're round up.

00:39:28   Mark Gurman of Bloomberg is reporting that Apple demoed their headset to the top 100

00:39:34   highest ranking executives at the Steve Jobs Theatre.

00:39:45   The demonstrations were polished, glitzy and exciting but many executives are clear eyed

00:39:49   about Apple's challenges pushing into this new market.

00:39:53   The device will start at around $3,000, lack a killer app, require an external battery

00:39:59   that will be needed to replace every couple of hours, and use a design that some testers

00:40:03   have deemed uncomfortable is also likely to launch a limited media content.

00:40:08   It could follow a similar trajectory as the Apple Watch.

00:40:11   There will be little to no profit at first, given that the components in the device are

00:40:15   so expensive and Apple won't be seeking its typical margins just yet.

00:40:18   So a few things on this.

00:40:20   There's a lot of stuff we know here, right?

00:40:22   we feel like we've heard before.

00:40:23   - From Mark Gurman and from the Financial Times both, yeah.

00:40:26   - But just seeing it again, kind of stated in this way,

00:40:30   starts to make it feel more like it's truth

00:40:32   rather than, you know, like that it's been heard enough.

00:40:35   But, you know, the key part of this report

00:40:38   is when it gets shown in this way, it's super close.

00:40:42   - They've shown other stuff related to this,

00:40:47   but they haven't done it at this level.

00:40:51   This is the level where it's like, it's gonna ship, right?

00:40:55   This is the level where it's very, very, very close.

00:40:58   Instead of it like being little parts,

00:41:00   it's like literally we're gonna do this.

00:41:01   I did laugh at the detail that this is the top 100

00:41:05   and they usually go to a far off,

00:41:07   they usually go to a fancy place and I think they did.

00:41:09   I think they went to like Carmel or something,

00:41:11   according to Mark Gurman, after this.

00:41:13   I think it's literally, well, we're not gonna demo

00:41:17   our unannounced product off campus.

00:41:19   So everybody pack your bags, hand them off,

00:41:23   we'll load them on the bus,

00:41:25   and then go to the Steve Jobs Theater,

00:41:27   and we're going to show you the thing,

00:41:29   and then get on the bus and we'll go to Carmel.

00:41:31   But like, they're not gonna take the headset

00:41:34   to a resort outside of Apple and show it, right?

00:41:38   Like that's, they're not gonna be that,

00:41:42   I mean, again, not open, but like they're secret enough

00:41:45   that this thing is not part of the event that's the offsite.

00:41:48   It's like before the offsite or after,

00:41:51   because they're not gonna let it leave campus.

00:41:53   I just found that amusing.

00:41:55   While we're talking about,

00:41:56   because Mark Gurman has been reporting about this

00:41:58   a long time, and so this served as a summary

00:42:00   of what the deal is with this.

00:42:01   I wanna mention that Quinn Nelson's,

00:42:04   Snazzy Labs YouTube channel had an excellent summary

00:42:09   of all reports about what's in this product

00:42:11   and what it means.

00:42:12   I thought he did a great job of doing the work

00:42:15   of finding out all, you know,

00:42:16   He basically got all the details of everything

00:42:19   that's ever been reported about this thing,

00:42:22   and then tried to put it together in a way

00:42:24   where it's like, why is this relevant?

00:42:26   With some details about like the optics and stuff,

00:42:29   it's a really good video.

00:42:30   I recommend it highly, really good summary of it.

00:42:34   - We'll call it.

00:42:35   - I think so.

00:42:36   - On the same vein, Trip Mickel and Brian X--

00:42:39   - Oh, here we go.

00:42:40   - Stop it.

00:42:41   Trip Mickel, I knew it, I knew it.

00:42:44   Trip Mickel and Brian X Chen--

00:42:44   - Did Tripp Mickle use his disgruntled Apple design sources

00:42:48   to set up a narrative? - At the New York Times

00:42:50   are reporting that some employees are skeptical

00:42:53   or flat out against Apple releasing the headset.

00:42:56   They have said that it's seen some employees

00:42:59   depart the teams that they've been on

00:43:02   because they're upset about it.

00:43:04   And Tripp Mickle not the only person to report like this.

00:43:07   We've had lots of reports like this.

00:43:08   I think on last week's episode, we had a similar one.

00:43:12   - I think, I mean, I said at the time,

00:43:13   and I'll say it again here, I think Trip Mickel

00:43:16   was a little mad that the Financial Times

00:43:17   got his disgruntled design sources from his book

00:43:22   on the record at the FT before he could get it

00:43:25   in the New York Times.

00:43:26   So here they are, they're here now.

00:43:28   - A few quotes from this New York Times article.

00:43:31   Apple is focused on making Excel for video conferencing

00:43:34   and spending time with others as avatars in a virtual world.

00:43:38   The company has called the device's

00:43:40   signature application co-presence, co-presence, co-presence,

00:43:45   a word designed-- - Copresence.

00:43:47   - Copresence, a word designed to capture the experience

00:43:52   of sharing a real, a virtual space

00:43:55   with someone in another place.

00:43:58   This makes a lot of sense to me as a thing to do.

00:44:00   - This is that, we'll create a virtual person,

00:44:03   but only one, we only have power for one,

00:44:06   and you'll be in the space with them.

00:44:07   - Me and you in a co-present world together.

00:44:10   - Oh man, some are fun.

00:44:11   - Some are fun.

00:44:12   (laughing)

00:44:15   The device will double as a tool for artists, designers

00:44:18   and engineers tracking them as they draw freely in space

00:44:21   in image editing applications and tracking hand gestures

00:44:24   for the editing of virtual reality films.

00:44:27   Lastly, it will function as a high resolution TV

00:44:30   of custom made video content from Hollywood filmmakers

00:44:33   such as Jon Favreau.

00:44:35   - Okay.

00:44:36   to get a name right? Yes, yes a name maybe the uh maybe that was that came up in the top 100 or

00:44:44   something I don't know that is fascinating such as Sean Favreau and others you know.

00:44:48   The headset looks like ski goggles it features a carbon fiber frame, a hip pack with battery

00:44:56   support, outward cameras to capture the real world and two 4k displays that can render everything

00:45:02   from applications to movies. Users can turn a "reality dial" on the device to increase or decrease

00:45:10   real-time video from the world around them. I like the way this is described in this piece.

00:45:16   There's some details here but this to me, the way it's described, sounds like it came from a

00:45:25   "demo," right? More than this person said to me. You know, like, just carbon fiber.

00:45:33   I haven't heard him say carbon fiber before. I haven't read that anywhere.

00:45:35   - I think that might have been somewhere, right? It's a big pool of stuff. I think it might have

00:45:41   been somewhere, but this is... - You know, like, reality dial. Like, the way this is described is

00:45:46   just different. - Right. It's... No, I think you hit on it there, which is, what's described here

00:45:51   feels very much like what has been described by others,

00:45:55   especially Mark Gurman, but other people.

00:45:57   But the way it's described suggests that it's coming

00:46:02   from potentially like, yeah, like you said,

00:46:05   like a demo or something where we're getting closer

00:46:07   to the actual verbiage that will be used by Apple

00:46:11   to demonstrate this to the public,

00:46:12   that they've reached that point where it's not,

00:46:14   I've seen a spec or I saw a test unit

00:46:18   and here's what it kind of looks like to being,

00:46:20   No, no, here's what they said.

00:46:22   They said that we're turning the reality dial

00:46:25   and it's got a carbon fiber frame and a hip pack.

00:46:28   Instead of saying, oh, there's a battery thing

00:46:30   that you stick in a pocket.

00:46:31   Like instead it's like, no, hip pack.

00:46:34   Interesting.

00:46:35   - Quote, "Because the headset won't fit over glasses,

00:46:38   won't warm, the company has plans to sell prescription

00:46:42   lenses for the displays to people who don't wear contacts."

00:46:45   Now, I really wonder about that.

00:46:49   because what does that mean?

00:46:51   Is that like the ski goggle thing?

00:46:52   Is it gonna make a seal over my eyes?

00:46:55   - I don't, I mean, it might

00:46:57   in order to completely isolate you.

00:46:59   So I have the prescription pop-on things

00:47:02   for the MetaQuest 2.

00:47:04   - Yeah.

00:47:05   - And it's great 'cause I don't have to wear my glasses

00:47:08   when I use it and the glasses were kind of weird

00:47:10   and uncomfortable inside the thing.

00:47:13   So I think the question is, like you could do this,

00:47:17   like you could do Apple Watch band sizes, honestly.

00:47:22   Because it's not like you get the complex prescription

00:47:27   from your doctor necessarily.

00:47:29   You can do this as a plus or minus whatever,

00:47:34   fairly simple correction that doesn't require

00:47:36   a full-on glasses prescription.

00:47:38   Then again, I think it was like a hundred bucks

00:47:41   to get those for the Quest 2.

00:47:43   So I don't know exactly how they're gonna approach this,

00:47:47   but it is gonna be a problem for people who wear glasses

00:47:49   if you have to either get a prescription from an eye doctor

00:47:53   or do the, like I bought a pair of swimming goggles, right?

00:47:57   And I didn't use a,

00:47:58   they're not custom prescription goggles.

00:48:00   I just did an, I ordered the ones with a certain adjustment

00:48:04   and it allows me to see if not perfectly like well enough.

00:48:08   And that may be what they do here.

00:48:10   - My only thing for this,

00:48:12   it's just gonna make the purchasing process really annoying.

00:48:15   Like that's how I see it, right?

00:48:17   Like for me, it's just like,

00:48:18   - Potentially.

00:48:19   - Gotta go through this whole song and dance.

00:48:21   - Potentially.

00:48:22   - We'll say, I mean, my prescription is not super strong.

00:48:24   I reckon I could get away with it

00:48:26   and then maybe get some lenses down the line

00:48:28   if it was a problem.

00:48:29   But as you say, there are, depending on your prescription,

00:48:33   that there are things that they can do in software,

00:48:35   like for like making the image look clearer to you.

00:48:40   But we'll see.

00:48:41   - Yeah, I mean, I think this is an interesting report.

00:48:43   There is definitely a lot.

00:48:44   I heard from a couple of friends this morning who are like,

00:48:46   seems like there's a lot of narrative building on here.

00:48:48   I think there is.

00:48:49   I think people are, like I said,

00:48:51   this story has some narrative building in it

00:48:56   that feels very much like the FT story,

00:48:58   Financial Times story last week,

00:48:59   which is from people who worked on it and left,

00:49:02   or from people who've left the company in general,

00:49:05   like the designers who've said,

00:49:06   "Please don't make this product, just wait for the glasses,"

00:49:08   which again, I feel like is an absurd kind of demand.

00:49:13   And so, but like you can't deny it.

00:49:17   Like it seems like some people at Apple

00:49:21   or who were at Apple are looking at this product like,

00:49:24   well, you know, what the heck is this thing?

00:49:26   Why are we shipping it?

00:49:27   And I have two thoughts about that.

00:49:29   One is you're doing it because the higher ups

00:49:33   and I'll refer you to my previous comments about this,

00:49:35   because the higher ups look at this and say,

00:49:38   we need to be in this space

00:49:39   because if anything is gonna replace the iPhone,

00:49:42   it's something that's going to be downwind of this

00:49:44   by 10 or 15 years.

00:49:45   And we got the money, so let's invest now

00:49:48   because it may fail, but if this category succeeds,

00:49:52   we gotta be the ones who succeed at it

00:49:53   because it's gonna replace the iPhone.

00:49:55   And if we don't do this, it'll be too late

00:49:58   for our most important part of our business.

00:49:59   And it might replace the Mac and the iPad

00:50:01   and everything else too.

00:50:03   So it's too big a risk, so we gotta spend the money.

00:50:05   So that's number one.

00:50:07   Like I could see how if you're working on it

00:50:10   and you're frustrated,

00:50:12   and it seems like it's not gonna change the world today,

00:50:15   that you would have negative thoughts about it.

00:50:17   The second thought I have about it is,

00:50:20   how did people feel about all the other products

00:50:22   Apple has shipped that were in new categories?

00:50:24   I would bet that,

00:50:26   and I know there's a lot of revisionism going on here,

00:50:28   I would bet that a lot of people were super skeptical

00:50:30   of the Apple Watch and didn't think it was ready to ship

00:50:32   and thought it was a mistake, and why are we doing this?

00:50:35   - Trip Mickel's book says so.

00:50:37   - And yet now everybody's like,

00:50:38   "Oh, that was a great success."

00:50:41   Well, it's like, yeah, in hindsight it was.

00:50:43   What I don't know is like,

00:50:44   were people really unhappy about the iMac

00:50:47   and thought this is ridiculous and a piece of junk

00:50:49   and why are we shipping this or the iPad?

00:50:51   Probably not the iPhone, but like,

00:50:53   that's the other part of this is,

00:50:55   I don't know whether this is evidence of anything.

00:50:57   Maybe this is the most controversial product

00:51:00   that Apple has ever made internally

00:51:01   and that people are so unhappy with the fact that the,

00:51:04   that for reasons, the executives are like,

00:51:06   "No, we're building it."

00:51:07   Maybe that's the case.

00:51:09   Maybe it's not.

00:51:10   I honestly don't know.

00:51:11   But I do not doubt the reporting here

00:51:14   that there are people who are very grumpy

00:51:15   and skeptical about this product

00:51:17   and this direction that the company is taking.

00:51:19   What I think is really interesting, Mike,

00:51:21   and this goes to our classic consider the source thing,

00:51:24   which is, have you noticed in the last few weeks

00:51:28   the downplaying that is happening

00:51:30   about the success of this product?

00:51:32   I think that's interesting.

00:51:33   That it's like, oh, it's gonna be very expensive

00:51:35   and they're not gonna sell very many of them,

00:51:38   and it's really just gonna be for high-end uses.

00:51:40   And even though there's these portrayals

00:51:43   of sort of controversy about it,

00:51:45   I've started to sense a trend in pieces

00:51:48   that are downplaying its immediate success.

00:51:51   It'll be like the Apple Watch

00:51:52   and follow a similar trajectory.

00:51:54   It's not even gonna make money at first.

00:51:56   It'll give it time.

00:51:57   It's a long-range kind of thing.

00:51:59   And I'm not saying that somebody at Apple

00:52:02   is responsible for seeding that kind of attitude

00:52:06   in these stories.

00:52:07   But again, if it's not, it's doing Apple's job for it,

00:52:12   because I'd wanna do that if I was at Apple PR,

00:52:15   I would want to diminish expectations for this product.

00:52:20   And it feels like that's happening.

00:52:22   Even in this New York Times story

00:52:24   that has got some grumpy stuff in it,

00:52:27   there's also a lot of kind of like expectation setting

00:52:30   for the product.

00:52:31   - Well, I agree with you.

00:52:32   I think these are like separate things that are happening.

00:52:35   Like people are complaining.

00:52:37   And then Apple is also at the same time

00:52:39   pushing out this narrative to people.

00:52:41   Because it is starting to become like,

00:52:44   not even so much like, ooh,

00:52:47   it just feels like this is fact now.

00:52:49   And there is, I can imagine this possibility

00:52:53   of some under-promising going on here.

00:52:56   And I'm not even saying they're gonna over-deliver.

00:52:57   There's like under-promising deliver, right?

00:53:00   but I think that that is perfectly acceptable

00:53:03   for this product and goes back to things

00:53:05   that we've been saying for months now

00:53:07   of like just be honest about it.

00:53:10   Like that this is the first one,

00:53:12   there's gonna be more, but you gotta start.

00:53:15   And that is a perfectly valid route for this product

00:53:18   rather than trying to say we're changing the world here now.

00:53:22   It's like no, it takes time.

00:53:25   - Do they have the guts to put up a picture of Steve Jobs

00:53:27   and say real artists ship?

00:53:29   I think it is actually relevant to this.

00:53:31   'Cause at some point you do have to ship a product.

00:53:34   You have to get on the treadmill.

00:53:35   You have to start your path forward.

00:53:36   You just have to.

00:53:38   You can't advance, let's wait five years

00:53:41   and build this in secret.

00:53:43   Like you can't do that.

00:53:44   You're not gonna get the feedback.

00:53:45   It's not real until you ship it,

00:53:48   until it meets the world

00:53:50   and then you discover everything that's wrong with it.

00:53:53   I was struck by the line in Mark Gurman's piece

00:53:56   that is, it lacks a clear killer app.

00:53:59   It's like, well, I mean, first off the New York Times story

00:54:01   talks about this co-presence thing,

00:54:03   which obviously some people at Apple

00:54:04   think might be something.

00:54:05   We also know that some people at Apple

00:54:08   thought that the killer app for the Apple Watch

00:54:10   was digital touch.

00:54:11   Okay. (laughs)

00:54:13   But again, one of the reasons you launch the platform

00:54:18   is to find the killer app.

00:54:20   And the killer app is not usually baked in the product.

00:54:24   The killer app usually happens out in the world

00:54:26   where people look at the tech that's inside the Apple

00:54:29   headset or anything else and go,

00:54:31   "Oh, you know what we could do?"

00:54:33   And then they build it and it's something

00:54:34   that's unanticipated or it hits just right

00:54:37   in a way that the other things that tried to do it

00:54:39   just didn't and you create a killer app.

00:54:41   The killer apps don't always happen

00:54:43   and the platform owner can have a lot of input

00:54:45   into sort of like whether they work or not.

00:54:47   But like the Apple 2,

00:54:49   forgive me if I'm getting my history

00:54:51   a little bit wrong here,

00:54:52   but like it's not like the Apple 2 shipped

00:54:54   because they knew that VisiCalc was coming out, right?

00:54:57   The first spreadsheet app.

00:54:58   That's not how it works.

00:55:00   You ship the platform

00:55:01   and then somebody invents the killer app for it.

00:55:03   And then everybody goes, "Oh my God, I can't believe."

00:55:06   And then it seems obvious

00:55:07   and then it all gets kind of retroactively defined

00:55:11   as being this genius thing.

00:55:12   - So there wasn't a killer app for the iPhone.

00:55:15   It was just like the whole thing was exciting.

00:55:17   - I was thinking about this today.

00:55:18   I was thinking, what's the killer app for the iPhone?

00:55:20   And I could argue that the killer app,

00:55:24   I mean, I could make an argument

00:55:25   that the killer app for the iPhone is Safari,

00:55:28   that like literally you could go anywhere.

00:55:29   - Yeah, but nobody thought that was exciting at the time.

00:55:33   - I know, I know.

00:55:34   And the truth is the killer app was the app store,

00:55:36   which allowed all the killer apps.

00:55:37   - Right, which didn't come for, you know, like--

00:55:40   - For 18 months. - There wasn't one.

00:55:42   It was just like, this entire product is fascinating

00:55:45   and it does everything a little bit better

00:55:47   than how you're currently doing it.

00:55:49   It didn't have like the one thing when it was announced

00:55:53   that pushed it over the edge.

00:55:55   - You're right.

00:55:55   And then 18 months later or so,

00:55:57   they announced the App Store, which changed the game

00:56:00   and that did lead, did open the door and did lead to more,

00:56:03   but it wasn't there at launch.

00:56:04   And you could argue came about in part

00:56:07   because they shipped the first one

00:56:08   and with their sweet solution for development,

00:56:10   which was web apps and the world said, no.

00:56:14   - Yeah. - Mm-mm, no.

00:56:15   - It's like there wasn't even a killer app.

00:56:16   - You need to write software.

00:56:17   - The killer app store, right?

00:56:18   and then everybody had their own killer app.

00:56:20   Like that's actually how you do it.

00:56:22   - Exactly, exactly.

00:56:23   But it was not there at launch.

00:56:25   So I'm not saying, again, the lack of a killer app

00:56:27   is not proof that there will be a killer app.

00:56:29   That's madness, that's not true.

00:56:31   But the lack of a killer app is also not proof

00:56:33   that there won't be, right?

00:56:34   It's just we don't know. - It's Schrodinger's

00:56:35   killer app, that's what we're doing.

00:56:36   - Yeah, there's a box and there might be a killer app

00:56:38   in it or not, we don't know.

00:56:40   And that's yet to be, but again, until you ship,

00:56:44   you can't open the box.

00:56:45   Until you ship, that's the thing ultimately

00:56:48   about all these arguments about this product is like,

00:56:50   again, one, I absolutely agree that I think

00:56:53   that this is being pushed at the highest levels

00:56:55   because of the big terms,

00:56:57   the big picture strategy of the future,

00:56:59   which is hard if you're working on the product

00:57:01   and you feel like it's not as good as it should be.

00:57:03   Totally see that conflict there, right?

00:57:05   But like, two, I really believe that some of these comments

00:57:09   about like, oh, I don't know if we should ship this,

00:57:10   it's like, it just, especially the FT story last week,

00:57:14   It just reminds me of how invaluable it is

00:57:19   to ship a product.

00:57:20   Like shipping a product,

00:57:22   there is only so much you can ever do to a product

00:57:25   behind the scenes.

00:57:26   You have to ship it.

00:57:27   It's like in my business of writing articles on the internet,

00:57:31   it's the equivalent of you post the article

00:57:34   and the moment you post it,

00:57:35   you see three things that are wrong with it

00:57:36   and you have to edit it.

00:57:38   Like there is something about being out in the world

00:57:41   that makes things different.

00:57:44   It's because anybody can see it

00:57:45   and they can pick it apart

00:57:46   and they will do things with it that you're not used to.

00:57:48   And like, that's actually kind of magical.

00:57:51   And that's the number one reason

00:57:52   I'm interested in this product is,

00:57:54   I wanna know what it is,

00:57:55   but I mean, I'm sorry to bring up the cliche

00:57:58   that Apple likes to say,

00:58:00   but you know, there's something to it,

00:58:02   which is we can't wait to see what you do with it.

00:58:04   That encapsulates it.

00:58:06   Like in the end, Apple can do what it can do,

00:58:09   but in the end, you gotta release it

00:58:12   and wait to see what somebody does with it.

00:58:15   That's the important part.

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01:00:14   It's just very clever, I love a little app to try out but there's tons of stuff.

01:00:17   I downloaded an app recently called PopClip and what PopClip does, you can highlight text

01:00:23   on your Mac and it gives you the kind of iOS-y style like copy paste that appear above it

01:00:29   but also popclip has a bunch of extensions. So for example now I can highlight a sentence

01:00:35   and press a button and it converts it to title case for me. Very helpful. So you can do tons

01:00:40   of stuff, that's just with popclip. There's so many apps available in Setapp. Setapp makes sure

01:00:45   to remove stuff that's outdated, they want to keep the collection up to date with the best software

01:00:49   around. If you've got a complex task to solve you can delve into your app collections and for peace

01:00:55   of mind, every app is updated automatically with no annoying ads to distract you and you

01:01:01   can install and uninstall apps with a single click.

01:01:04   Go and check out Setapp today by trying it out for 7 days for free. Go to stpp.co/upgrade

01:01:16   to try it completely free for 7 days. Setapp powers you up. Thanks to Setapp for their

01:01:22   support of this show and Relay FM.

01:01:24   Mark Gurman in his Poweron newsletter has suggested that iOS 17 will feature several

01:01:34   "nice to have" features that are intended to address some commonly made user requests.

01:01:44   This is very different to what we had previously been led to believe, that iOS 17 would just

01:01:49   be a bunch of bug fixes because of everyone focusing on the headset.

01:01:53   So I thought that maybe today we could talk about what would be a bunch of nice to have

01:01:58   features for iOS 7.

01:02:01   - Love it.

01:02:02   - I got in there at the end, I forgot the teen.

01:02:05   iOS 7, a nice to have feature would be a readable font.

01:02:09   That would be a good feature for iOS 7.

01:02:12   - Teen.

01:02:13   - iOS 7 teen.

01:02:14   - Yeah.

01:02:15   - What jumps to mind for you?

01:02:17   What would you be happy to see added to iOS 17?

01:02:21   - Home automation, but I feel like that's also right,

01:02:25   like tvOS, but I am, I mean,

01:02:28   we can talk about shortcuts in general, right?

01:02:30   I feel like more shortcut support in apps,

01:02:33   more capability for shortcuts to do other things.

01:02:37   They've been so far behind there.

01:02:39   In fact, this would be a probably a good time to mention.

01:02:42   Alex Hay, the creator of Toolbox Pro

01:02:46   and a bunch of other stuff passed away last week.

01:02:50   They did a nice write-up about it on Mac stories,

01:02:53   John Voorhees did.

01:02:54   Obviously, to everybody who was touched by Alex

01:02:59   in his life and his family and all of that,

01:03:02   our greatest condolences.

01:03:04   But I was struck when I read about Alex's passing

01:03:07   at how he was doing so much heavy lifting for Apple.

01:03:10   Because like Toolbox Pro,

01:03:14   Toolbox Pro is a great example

01:03:17   of all of the shortcut actions that Apple just hasn't done.

01:03:22   That are, they're right there

01:03:26   and that Apple hasn't done them.

01:03:28   So it struck me this morning thinking about that,

01:03:31   that that would be a thing that I would like to see

01:03:33   Apple do in shortcuts is look at all the stuff built

01:03:38   for things like Toolbox Pro

01:03:40   and do them in the operating system.

01:03:44   'Cause the problem with an app like Toolbox Pro

01:03:46   is you have to have it installed to use it.

01:03:49   So handing it out to your friends,

01:03:51   a shortcut that relies on Toolbox Pro is harder

01:03:53   because they have to get Toolbox Pro and all of that.

01:03:56   So I'm struck by that.

01:03:58   And then more broadly than sort of like better,

01:04:01   better integration with shortcuts and on the iPad,

01:04:04   which is not, I've had OS, iOS, pretty much the same.

01:04:07   Keyboards, keyboard support for shortcuts is a good example,

01:04:10   but like more actions.

01:04:13   And then the home automation side,

01:04:14   which you can get to in the Home app,

01:04:16   which is like shortcuts,

01:04:17   but pretty weak at what it's capable of doing

01:04:21   and has been weak for a long time

01:04:22   since they introduced it.

01:04:24   I would really like to see a more sophisticated

01:04:27   set of home automations that can run on tvOS

01:04:30   or wherever the home hub is

01:04:33   to do more sophisticated things

01:04:35   because it's pretty dumb right now,

01:04:37   even though you can do,

01:04:38   yeah, you can build like home automation shortcuts,

01:04:41   but they're kind of dumb.

01:04:42   They just don't,

01:04:43   I need more, I need more conditionals, I need more,

01:04:47   if it's within this range and this sensor is above this,

01:04:51   then do that kind of thing.

01:04:53   And you just can't get to that level of specificity.

01:04:57   So that would be one of mine.

01:04:58   - I will mention here, as I've mentioned forever,

01:05:02   I love tap backs on iMessage, use them all day, every day.

01:05:07   I wished I could just have all of emoji available to me,

01:05:10   same as Slack, Discord, WhatsApp.

01:05:13   It's fine that there's a few that are preset there,

01:05:16   but just let me add emoji to messages

01:05:19   rather than just those preset five things, you know?

01:05:23   I would love that.

01:05:24   - Yeah, oh boy, that's one of my favorites.

01:05:26   And I know why you might wanna keep it constrained

01:05:29   to the five or whatever, but I just,

01:05:34   I want more of a lexicon and the emoji set is right there.

01:05:37   And I get that you might wanna have them be,

01:05:39   first off, people are comfortable with emojis.

01:05:41   People are comfortable sending emojis.

01:05:43   So having emojis as tap backs and let it be settable

01:05:46   or let it be that it's those five.

01:05:48   And then you, you know, they're the five most recent ones

01:05:50   you've used maybe, but then you can add others or, you know,

01:05:54   have a more button that lets you pick from the emoji picker.

01:05:59   And then that one gets put in your most recent

01:06:01   because Slack and Discord have shown us

01:06:04   that emoji responses are a lot of fun.

01:06:07   And I love tap backs and I wish I had more expressivity

01:06:12   with them.

01:06:13   - And that feels to me like,

01:06:14   talk about like a commonly requested feature,

01:06:17   that's got to be one of them.

01:06:18   Like people must be looking for that.

01:06:21   - Unless there's some very complex way

01:06:23   that tap backs are handled within the iMessage system,

01:06:25   you would think that this would be a thing

01:06:27   that they could, not that there are challenges

01:06:28   to the interface, I just described one of them,

01:06:30   but like you would think that would be a pretty,

01:06:33   if not easy, a fairly doable thing that would be a win

01:06:36   and would be a crowd-pleaser, 'cause people love emojis.

01:06:39   - I will say as well, it's a similar while we're at that,

01:06:41   they're gonna change that. I do not need a full iMessage notification for that

01:06:45   box. I don't need it. Yeah, love to be able to turn that off. Yeah.

01:06:50   Jason said "haha" like I don't need that. No. "Haha." "Haha." You always say "hah"

01:06:56   space "hah." "Hah." "Hah." "Hah." I've said this before but I'll say it again. That's how Jason

01:07:02   doesn't say "lol" or anything like that. If Jason thinks something's funny,

01:07:07   HA space HA, very unsettling.

01:07:10   - Sometimes there's three ha's.

01:07:11   - It's very unsettling.

01:07:13   - I don't know, HA HA comes across to me as ha ha ha ha ha.

01:07:17   And that's, I find that unsettling in my head.

01:07:19   - Yeah, but nobody like goes ha, ha, ha, like that's not.

01:07:24   - Ha ha ha, there it is.

01:07:25   - Yeah, but I feel like that's, there's no space there.

01:07:28   - Ha, ha.

01:07:31   - See, it stops signin'.

01:07:33   Widgets, widgets everywhere.

01:07:35   We want more widgets on the lock screen,

01:07:38   different sizes, big ones, small ones.

01:07:41   We want, maybe we want some level of interactivity.

01:07:46   I think the jury's still out.

01:07:47   I don't want it, I don't particularly feel like I need it,

01:07:50   but maybe the occasional thing might be helpful.

01:07:53   Yeah, loads more widget stuff.

01:07:55   That would be good for everywhere that there's widgets.

01:07:58   - Yeah, I want more widget space on the lock screen.

01:08:03   And then I was thinking about it

01:08:05   and I was thinking, you know,

01:08:06   I wanna just put widgets on the lock screen.

01:08:08   I just wanna put any widget on the lock screen.

01:08:10   - Like a home screen widget on the lock screen?

01:08:13   - Right, why am I limited?

01:08:16   And I know there's like, oh, well,

01:08:18   but your picture and we're creating a frame is like,

01:08:20   well, you know what?

01:08:21   I'm a big boy.

01:08:22   I wanna put a widget on my home screen

01:08:25   and have it cover up the background picture

01:08:27   or on my lock screen.

01:08:28   Let me do it.

01:08:29   Right, let me do it.

01:08:30   Let me choose to do that.

01:08:32   If widgets are more important to me

01:08:34   than the pictures on my lock screen,

01:08:36   I should be able to make that decision.

01:08:38   So I would like to see that

01:08:40   because I think the lock screen would be a great stage

01:08:43   on which to set some home screen widgets too.

01:08:47   - Well, anything else that jumps to your mind?

01:08:51   - Oh, let's see.

01:08:53   I was thinking, I had a vague idea.

01:08:56   So I just appear behind the curtain.

01:08:58   I woke up this morning and to a text from Mike saying,

01:09:03   saying we're gonna do this iOS 7 wishlist,

01:09:06   so you might wanna put some work in there.

01:09:07   - iOS 17. - Okay, all right.

01:09:09   Sorry, team. - You said seven as well.

01:09:10   (laughs)

01:09:11   I'm saying something as a mind virus.

01:09:13   Are we gonna do this for the next year?

01:09:15   - Team, I'm gonna change our topic to 17TEEN.

01:09:20   Just to be clear.

01:09:23   - The problem here with iOS 7, so iconic.

01:09:28   I would say the most iconic iOS release of all time.

01:09:33   Like whether you like it or not,

01:09:35   it's like if you were around then,

01:09:38   it's like emblazoned in your mind.

01:09:41   And so I feel like I'm gonna be calling iOS 17,

01:09:44   iOS 7 constantly now.

01:09:46   And I didn't realize until today that that was a problem,

01:09:49   but I think it's gonna be a problem for me.

01:09:51   - iOS 7, teen.

01:09:54   - iOS 7, fourteens.

01:09:56   It's like a cool version.

01:09:57   - More widgets.

01:09:58   - Anyway, I don't even know what I said.

01:10:01   So after all of that, of like getting up

01:10:04   on a Monday morning and thinking about things,

01:10:06   one of the half-brained things I wrote down

01:10:11   was smart notification center.

01:10:14   And let me just tell you what my thought process is here.

01:10:17   It's one, I don't love notification center.

01:10:19   - It's never been good.

01:10:21   - It's never really been good, it's full of garbage.

01:10:24   And I thought, and I know that sometimes

01:10:26   they try to do some of this,

01:10:27   but I thought, 'cause you wrote down for another thing

01:10:30   that we haven't talked about, AI, machine learning

01:10:32   and stuff like that, are there features

01:10:33   that you could do there?

01:10:34   And I thought, I wonder if you could do

01:10:36   a machine learning based summary of your notification center

01:10:41   that would appear when, like, since the last time

01:10:45   you looked or maybe it would appear as a notification

01:10:48   since the last time you picked up your phone.

01:10:50   - Well, they do have that notification summary thing,

01:10:53   but that's not good. - They do have that.

01:10:55   - I think. - It's not good though.

01:10:56   So this is what I'm saying is,

01:10:57   I just, what I literally wrote down

01:11:00   and have not got the details

01:11:01   'cause I just thought of it like an hour ago,

01:11:03   is what if we used AI machine learning

01:11:08   summarization or something,

01:11:10   could we put that on Notification Center

01:11:13   and make it better and useful?

01:11:17   'Cause I probably don't need to know

01:11:21   everything that's in the Notification Center,

01:11:23   but I wonder if there's a way to like,

01:11:25   for you to boil it down for me in a good way.

01:11:28   I don't know.

01:11:29   Or throw out AI or just something else to make it better.

01:11:34   'Cause it's just not, it doesn't work for me.

01:11:36   - Something I wanted to write down,

01:11:37   but I didn't know how to express it,

01:11:39   was just notifications, right?

01:11:41   That like the system isn't good fundamentally

01:11:45   and stuff could be done here.

01:11:47   Like this is especially in my mind

01:11:48   as this is the Mac power users,

01:11:50   they're talking about like digital distractions

01:11:51   and stuff this week.

01:11:52   And like, so it was in my head,

01:11:54   but something like this is like,

01:11:55   yeah, just make it better with machine learning somehow, right?

01:11:59   And this is like, you referenced something that I've written down is,

01:12:03   is a large language model powered Siri.

01:12:06   I don't think that's going to happen in Iowa 17 necessarily,

01:12:09   but I feel like that is just inevitable.

01:12:13   So it's just about when they do this.

01:12:16   And so like the idea of a revamp of Siri feels like it would be a commonly

01:12:20   made request, like quote, makes Siri better, right?

01:12:23   and I'm assuming at some point that is going to be a GPT-like thing, right?

01:12:31   Where however Apple makes something like that,

01:12:34   it feels like they've got to do this because everyone's going to do this

01:12:39   and Siri will only become more and more of a joke over time

01:12:44   if you can't have a conversation with it and it do stuff for you,

01:12:48   whether that stuff, wouldn't know about what the quality of that stuff is.

01:12:52   You know, we are, we're on a ticking clock, right?

01:12:55   Until either Amazon, Google, or Apple puts this

01:12:59   into their smart speaker assistant.

01:13:02   - And I get that you don't want the hallucinations

01:13:05   and misinformation, but it is so tantalizing,

01:13:07   the idea that I could have a conversation with Siri,

01:13:10   where it would be a conversation,

01:13:11   and where I could ask a question and get an answer,

01:13:14   and then ask a follow-up and get another answer.

01:13:16   And again, I think a lot of the AI demos

01:13:18   that we see out there are bad, right?

01:13:19   It's write a screenplay or give me a fact is good.

01:13:24   And a lot of times, I did that last week.

01:13:27   I was talking to a couple of friends who were Dr. Who fans

01:13:29   and I was like, I'm gonna have chapter GPT-4 hallucinate.

01:13:33   And I asked it to hallucinate,

01:13:34   but even when I asked it for facts,

01:13:37   anyway, I asked it to invent the Dr. Who season,

01:13:40   which was hilarious and cliched,

01:13:42   as they always are, all the answers are cliched.

01:13:44   - It did it. - 'Cause they're built.

01:13:45   - It did the job. (laughs)

01:13:46   - But it did it.

01:13:47   But then I asked it for facts

01:13:49   And it hallucinated horrendously.

01:13:51   And it's like, this is a problem,

01:13:53   but that's the part that they need to get right.

01:13:55   I don't need Siri to invent things for me,

01:13:58   even though it's fun.

01:13:59   And I don't need to have long conversations with Siri

01:14:02   where I talk about my feelings

01:14:06   and it tries to get me to leave my wife, right?

01:14:08   I don't need those kinds of stories,

01:14:10   but I would like it if I could talk to Siri

01:14:14   and try to get facts and get them in context.

01:14:17   I would like to be able to say, "Hey, you, when's the next Giants game?"

01:14:26   And for it to say, "Well, it's Thursday against the New York Yankees."

01:14:29   And then I would like to be able to follow that up and say, "Oh, who are the starting

01:14:33   pitchers?"

01:14:35   And have it give me the answer.

01:14:38   And then say, "What about the starting lineups?"

01:14:42   And have it say intelligently, "The starting lineups won't be posted until the morning

01:14:47   of the game, so I don't know.

01:14:48   Like that's the dream, right?

01:14:50   Where it's just better at context

01:14:54   and at giving me information in ways that I can grasp.

01:14:57   And it can do, again, it can do

01:14:59   the wins the giants next game today.

01:15:01   And so can Google and so can Amazon's assistant,

01:15:05   who I fired and sent back to Amazon in a box last week,

01:15:07   which was very delightful.

01:15:10   She's in a box, Alexa's in a box going back to Amazon, bye.

01:15:14   So yeah, that's the dream, right?

01:15:16   Well, my dream, Jason, is that I can say to Siri,

01:15:19   "Hey, once me and Jason were talking about something

01:15:23   of iMessage about baseball, can you find that for me?"

01:15:27   That's what I wanted to do, right?

01:15:29   I don't need this thing to talk to the internet.

01:15:32   I understand how to use the search engine.

01:15:35   I can just do it myself.

01:15:36   What I'm excited about is being able to take my information

01:15:40   and put them into these models.

01:15:41   And like, Siri on my iPhone should be able to tell me

01:15:45   about anything that's happening on my iPhone.

01:15:47   Like, forget searching emails, right?

01:15:49   Like, I just wanna say, can you find that email

01:15:52   about that one time me and Jason were talking about

01:15:54   what the name of upgrade was gonna be?

01:15:56   - That's the dream, right?

01:15:57   And I mean, on the Mac too,

01:15:59   because remember Siri is on the Mac too.

01:16:01   I know they've done some experimenting with this,

01:16:04   but like, the dream is that it knows

01:16:07   that I've got Google Docs,

01:16:09   and I've got files on my hard drive,

01:16:11   and I've got things in iCloud,

01:16:12   and I've got all that stuff.

01:16:14   And when I say, you know, when did Mike and I talk about this thing or Slack or Discord,

01:16:21   that it would be capable of looking at all my things that are logged in and say,

01:16:26   Oh, uh, it was in Slack on this date or whatever.

01:16:31   And here's a link to that and you can go see it.

01:16:33   And I know that that's a ways off because it would have to catalog everything that was

01:16:39   happening everywhere.

01:16:40   And there are those, there's that app out there that like does that right.

01:16:42   where the catalogs everything and records everything you say

01:16:45   and does all of that.

01:16:47   But I agree with you on a simple level,

01:16:50   it is, if I could, if it's got the corpus

01:16:53   of the essentially spotlight search, right?

01:16:57   And I give it a command saying,

01:17:00   when did Mike and I exchange email about this thing?

01:17:03   Or when did I exchange email with somebody at Apple

01:17:06   about this thing?

01:17:07   And I don't even know who it is.

01:17:09   That it would be able to look at my query,

01:17:12   figure out what that meant, make a spotlight query,

01:17:15   get the results back, look at the results,

01:17:19   see what the most likely scenarios are

01:17:22   and respond with an answer.

01:17:23   And it might be, well, it could be this one or that one.

01:17:26   And then you'd say, I think it's this one

01:17:28   or tell me what that one is.

01:17:30   And then it would give you an answer, right?

01:17:31   You can see the applications here.

01:17:32   The challenge is there's a reason why

01:17:34   none of these assistants are doing that now.

01:17:36   And I think it's because they lie.

01:17:38   They don't work, they don't work right.

01:17:41   but I would love to see it.

01:17:43   - You'd love to see it.

01:17:45   Talking about machine learning stuff,

01:17:47   I think you put in here machine learning editing for photos

01:17:52   and you referenced something like Google or Pixelmator.

01:17:56   Like over the last couple of days,

01:17:58   I was taking some images and I was using,

01:18:01   I'd never done it before,

01:18:03   Pixelmator pros machine learning editing tools.

01:18:07   They are unbelievable.

01:18:09   I've been meaning to do a video which is,

01:18:12   did you know that not only does Google make a phone,

01:18:16   but that Pixelmator Pro has been,

01:18:18   or Pixelmator Photo has been erasing things

01:18:20   off of iPhone and iPad photos for years now?

01:18:23   Like every time I see that ad where it's like,

01:18:25   oh look, I erased this person

01:18:26   and they're not in my beach shot anymore.

01:18:28   And I'm like, I did that three years ago

01:18:30   with Pixelmator Photo on my iPad.

01:18:32   Look, Mike, I write a book about photos.

01:18:35   Every year I update it.

01:18:37   Every year I'm looking at what the photos announcements are.

01:18:39   I cannot believe that photos on iOS

01:18:42   does not have a retouching brush.

01:18:45   Photos on the Mac has one,

01:18:47   and it's more like the clone tool in Photoshop

01:18:50   than it is like an ML replace tool.

01:18:52   But like Pixelmator Photo is right there.

01:18:54   It's been there for years.

01:18:55   It does, it will do upscaling.

01:18:57   It will do an ML based auto mode.

01:19:00   And for all I know, Apple's auto mode

01:19:02   is also an ML based auto mode.

01:19:04   So, okay, fine.

01:19:06   - It's nowhere near as good though.

01:19:07   It's nowhere near as good.

01:19:08   - It's not as good, it isn't, which is why I wonder.

01:19:11   And then it's got that replacement tool,

01:19:14   which again is not perfect,

01:19:16   but Google is making hay on,

01:19:19   did you know we have this feature?

01:19:21   And it's like that feature has been on iOS for years now,

01:19:23   but it's been a third party app

01:19:24   and Apple has just not put retouching.

01:19:27   And that would be, again, I don't know how easy it would be,

01:19:30   but like there is a version of that on photos for Mac.

01:19:33   I just, I would really like to see that

01:19:34   'cause there is nothing like having a beautiful photo

01:19:37   of you and your friends or your family on a beach.

01:19:40   And there's some dummy walking in the background

01:19:43   just minding his own business.

01:19:45   It's not his fault that he's there,

01:19:46   but he's ruining your shot, he's photo bombing you.

01:19:48   And you literally just go, boop, and he disappears.

01:19:51   It is a great feature.

01:19:52   It just frustrates me that Google is making

01:19:54   so much noise about it,

01:19:55   since it's been on the platform for years now.

01:19:59   So I know people will be like,

01:20:01   "Oh, look, Apple took Google's feature and put it in."

01:20:03   as like, do it, just do it.

01:20:05   And other, you know, anything you can do

01:20:08   to make your photo editing on the fly

01:20:11   on an iPhone better, do it.

01:20:12   - Split view on iPhone.

01:20:16   I want it.

01:20:17   Just let me do split view on iPhone.

01:20:19   Just like, I got a big iPhone.

01:20:21   Let me look at two apps at once.

01:20:22   - They're not getting smaller.

01:20:24   - No, I would like that.

01:20:26   So let me do that.

01:20:27   - I agree with you.

01:20:28   I think that's a good one.

01:20:30   I laughed when I saw that you put that in your list

01:20:32   because, you know. - It is funny.

01:20:33   It is funny, but like, it's not unreasonable.

01:20:38   I'll throw in, how about,

01:20:41   hey, satellite SOS is out there now.

01:20:45   And I know they're expanding into other markets

01:20:47   and all of that.

01:20:48   You know what else they could do,

01:20:50   is actually build satellite communication in.

01:20:55   And now that it's launched, right?

01:20:58   Like charge a fee per message or something

01:21:01   tied to your Apple account,

01:21:02   or have you have to sign up for satellite messaging

01:21:05   and it would be only for a limited use.

01:21:07   But like, I feel like that is a next step for the platform

01:21:11   is giving phones that have access

01:21:13   to the satellite communicator,

01:21:15   the ability to send a text message over satellite,

01:21:20   for a fee.

01:21:22   - iCloud Plus, baby, you know.

01:21:24   - Maybe, maybe, or it's a whole extra thing.

01:21:26   They might have another,

01:21:27   I mean, they said that was for two years, right?

01:21:29   They may be, I mean, there's no time like the present

01:21:32   a story, but if they're going to get people to pay in two years, then, you know, start

01:21:35   building out what they're paying for. If they're paying for just satellite SOS, or if there's

01:21:39   an upsell, or if you pay, do you get more than the basic feature that you get when you

01:21:44   buy an iPhone? I don't know. I just, it was a thought that I had that now that satellite

01:21:48   SOS is out the door, that would be the logical next step, right? Which is, I'm not, I don't

01:21:53   need an SOS, but I, sending my location is not like, I want to do more than that. You

01:21:59   and send you a location via satellite.

01:22:01   But like, I wanna send a text message

01:22:04   or receive a text message from a particular person

01:22:06   via satellite.

01:22:07   Like, I know that's complex,

01:22:09   but like, let me do it and pay for it.

01:22:13   - Last one I'll mention, passwords app.

01:22:15   - Yeah, I put that in there.

01:22:18   - Yeah.

01:22:19   - Aren't you glad I put it in there?

01:22:19   - Yeah, aren't you glad?

01:22:20   - Right? - Mm-hmm.

01:22:21   - Right, passwords is so full featured as a thing on iOS

01:22:25   and it's hidden in a settings menu.

01:22:28   And it's like, it's so good.

01:22:30   Like there are, I'm not gonna name names,

01:22:33   but like there are probably other Apple apps

01:22:35   that don't need to be apps,

01:22:36   but passwords needs to be an app.

01:22:38   It really deserves to be an app.

01:22:40   They deserve to take all that work

01:22:42   and put it front and center and say,

01:22:44   we have a password manager.

01:22:45   I try to explain the password manager to people.

01:22:47   And I say, you gotta go into settings

01:22:49   and you go out and they're like, ugh.

01:22:50   It's like, let's not do that.

01:22:52   Let's put passwords on the phone.

01:22:55   So you tap.

01:22:56   And I know that's silly on one level.

01:22:57   it's like, well, it's just in settings, you can get there.

01:22:59   It's like, yeah, but also if you're going back and forth

01:23:02   with your passwords app, you're in the settings app.

01:23:06   It's just break it up, make it its own thing.

01:23:09   That's what I say.

01:23:10   My, I wanna do some footnotes here.

01:23:13   This is mostly about iOS, but like iPadOS,

01:23:16   all those iPhone features that are not yet an iPadOS,

01:23:18   I would like them like widgets on lock screens

01:23:21   and editable lock screens and stuff like that.

01:23:24   Like please, can we get that on the iPad now?

01:23:27   That seems to be doable since it's literally already

01:23:30   on the platform, just not on the other hardware.

01:23:33   And my last LOL wishlist item is virtualization.

01:23:38   And that's an iPad feature, but like, yeah,

01:23:42   let me run a VM on an iPad.

01:23:43   Let me virtualize macOS on an M2 iPad Pro.

01:23:47   Why not?

01:23:48   - Let me have an LOL feature or a ha feature.

01:23:51   - Ha.

01:23:51   - Ha.

01:23:52   - Ha.

01:23:53   - Ha.

01:23:54   stores. Lots of people are asking for a ha. You know ha ha ha ha.

01:24:02   This episode is brought to you by electric. Turning a small business into an empire takes

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01:25:42   up with some #AskUpgradeQuestions.

01:25:46   (mimics air whooshing)

01:25:47   No hashtag, just #AskUpgradeQuestions.

01:25:48   - Shot the hashtag with a laser right there.

01:25:50   - Indeed.

01:25:51   Carl says, "Should Apple just make a 13-inch iPad Air?"

01:25:55   - Sure, why not?

01:25:58   I think this goes to the 15-inch MacBook Air question,

01:26:01   right, which is like-- - That is exactly it.

01:26:03   - Are we gating iPad size based on Pro features,

01:26:08   or is there a market for a larger iPad?

01:26:11   I don't know.

01:26:12   I mean, I wonder what market research Apple has done

01:26:15   on this front, because look, I love my 12.9-inch iPad Pro,

01:26:20   but every time I pick up my wife's 11-inch iPad Pro,

01:26:25   I think, "Oh, it's much smaller and lighter

01:26:28   than the thing that I use."

01:26:30   And so I wonder if people are,

01:26:33   if there are enough people like me

01:26:34   who would want a larger thing,

01:26:36   and if those people are iPad Pro users.

01:26:39   I think the question, the real question is,

01:26:41   is the 13 inch iPad Pro $1,500?

01:26:47   In which case, yes, they should make a 13 inch iPad Air.

01:26:50   I think that's my answer.

01:26:52   They're going, the iPad Pros keep going further

01:26:54   and further away from the iPad Air.

01:26:56   There's more need to have a more affordable

01:26:58   larger iPad, I think.

01:27:00   - On the face of it today, I say no,

01:27:03   but in the future where they are going to make that

01:27:07   a very expensive product, I think there is value to just having the larger screen, right?

01:27:13   In the same way that we talk about the idea of there being a 15" MacBook Air and why that

01:27:17   might make sense for people, a larger iPad Air at that point would make more sense for

01:27:22   people who don't need OLED screen etc etc etc.

01:27:33   Colin asks, "Have you ever tried to develop contacts

01:27:37   with Apple employees in an attempt to gather

01:27:39   insider information to create sources

01:27:42   like those of Mark Gurman?"

01:27:44   So maybe you could be in room around up.

01:27:46   - Mm-mm.

01:27:47   - And do you ever, and if you did this,

01:27:48   would you feel that it could harm

01:27:50   your overall relationship with Apple?

01:27:53   - Yeah, so I don't think about it anymore,

01:27:56   but there was a time.

01:27:58   When I was working in Mac world and Mac user,

01:28:01   there was this definite sense that there were the people

01:28:05   who reported on, who cultivated rumors and leaks

01:28:10   and got people inside with knowledge to talk,

01:28:13   and that it was very difficult.

01:28:15   Those people were over here,

01:28:17   and the people who were like writing reviews

01:28:20   and things like that are over on the other side.

01:28:22   There was always this feeling like you could do one

01:28:25   or the other, but you couldn't really do both.

01:28:27   And part of that was the threat at least

01:28:32   that Apple would not talk to you

01:28:34   if you were a breaker of rumors.

01:28:36   In fact, I remember being surprised

01:28:38   when I saw Mark Gurman at an Apple event at one point.

01:28:41   And he's kinda, sometimes he's there, sometimes he's not.

01:28:44   But I don't know if that's the case anymore.

01:28:49   And the reason that my answer here is basically not lately

01:28:54   is I am, I mean, I can't answer for you, Mike,

01:28:58   but I am one person.

01:28:59   I have, I am very limited in what I am capable

01:29:03   of doing for my job because I am a one human being.

01:29:07   And not only would this require a lot of effort,

01:29:11   which would mean I would have to stop other parts of my job

01:29:13   because I'd basically be, you know,

01:29:15   essentially competing with Mark Gurman.

01:29:17   But now Six Colors is no longer a, you know,

01:29:22   the site that it is, whatever it is now,

01:29:24   It is now a, you know, a Apple rumor site and I'm limited.

01:29:29   So I'm doing less stuff.

01:29:31   I have to focus on this thing.

01:29:34   Mark Gurman's already doing it.

01:29:36   And quite frankly, I'm kind of happy with the mix of stuff

01:29:38   that I have in my life right now in terms of podcasts

01:29:41   and writing and stuff like that.

01:29:43   And it would, so I'm not in this era,

01:29:46   I'm not as worried about, oh no,

01:29:47   Apple's not gonna send me PR, you know,

01:29:50   review units of reviews if I report about their secrets,

01:29:55   although that might be true, I don't know.

01:29:57   It's more like, it's like I could write about new apps

01:30:02   all the time, like Max Stories, but I don't.

01:30:07   I don't have the time.

01:30:08   They do a great job with that.

01:30:09   I'm doing other stuff.

01:30:11   I'm okay doing my other stuff, right?

01:30:14   It would require me to stop doing other work that I'm doing,

01:30:17   and I think the mix is pretty decent right now.

01:30:19   So for me personally, that's the answer.

01:30:22   Plus also I'd say in the longer run,

01:30:25   that is a job I could have tried to do

01:30:27   when I was earlier on in my career

01:30:30   to cultivate sources and break news and stuff like that.

01:30:33   And I chose a different path in terms of being,

01:30:38   I don't know, a happier person.

01:30:41   That kind of stuff did not make me happy.

01:30:44   It was not the stuff that made me like working.

01:30:48   And so I chose to specialize in other things.

01:30:50   So, you know, when I left Macworld and was out on my own

01:30:55   and doing this stuff, you know, you do that thing

01:30:57   for a year after you, at least a year after you leave,

01:30:59   where every time there's a real job that gets posted,

01:31:02   you think, oh, maybe I should do that job

01:31:04   instead of going out on my own.

01:31:05   And it takes a long, for me, it took a long time

01:31:08   to stop the reflex action of part of my brain saying,

01:31:11   you should get a real job.

01:31:13   Some of the jobs that came up right after I left

01:31:14   were like working the bureau at the New York Times,

01:31:17   covering Apple, working the bureau at the Wall Street Journal covering Apple. And I

01:31:21   kept thinking, could I do that job? And I thought, I don't know if they'd hire me to

01:31:25   do that job. I probably could do that job. I would not like doing that job. Not what

01:31:31   I specialized in for a reason. So I mean, so that's my answer is I do occasionally and

01:31:37   you have this mic. Occasionally we hear from people who listen to upgrade and know stuff

01:31:41   and they send us stuff and that's great. It's less fun when they know it and you can't write

01:31:46   about it, which we, that definitely happened at Macworld where we had cases where we knew

01:31:51   a lot about what was to come under the restriction that you couldn't write about it. Which is

01:31:57   like, what are you doing? Now I can't even speculate about it because I know it's true,

01:32:01   but if I speculate too close to the real thing, then I'm going to get somebody in trouble.

01:32:06   That did actually happen once where I speculated a little too close to something that somebody

01:32:10   else on my staff knew was true. And they got questioned by their source at Apple saying,

01:32:16   "Did you leak this to Jason?" And I was like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

01:32:21   that didn't happen." But like, that's the danger of that too. So now, now I've shut

01:32:26   off, especially if they tell me things that I can't report about, then I've shut off my

01:32:29   ability to write my column for Macworld or things on six colors or talk on this podcast

01:32:33   about it, because now I know things and I can't talk about it. And that's not great

01:32:37   So that's a long way of saying I do hear things

01:32:41   and people do send us things, but it's like,

01:32:43   that's not the business I'm in.

01:32:45   And if I had to be in that business, I guess I would try it,

01:32:48   but I don't have to, so I'm not.

01:32:50   - So I think for me, I'll start by answering the second part

01:32:54   which is if I truly worried about my relationship with Apple,

01:32:59   there's a lot of things I wouldn't say that I do say, right?

01:33:03   Like I wouldn't be as critical as I can be

01:33:06   if I was worried about some relationship, right?

01:33:10   Like, but to me now, that stuff,

01:33:13   I'm not as fussed about that anymore.

01:33:15   Like, I've had the experience of having hardware reviews

01:33:20   and very slightly pre-release.

01:33:22   So it's like a thing that I've checked off my bucket list,

01:33:24   but now I'm not interested in chasing that down.

01:33:28   Like, because it's just not what I want to do.

01:33:31   - And there are layers to it, right?

01:33:33   Because like I have had to make a little mental model,

01:33:38   which is, I do have a relationship with Apple PR people

01:33:43   and Apple has a relationship with me.

01:33:46   And as a product reviewer and commentator,

01:33:49   you have to build a little wall, which is,

01:33:52   I'm gonna say what I think,

01:33:55   and it's not always gonna be positive.

01:33:59   And you have to understand that what you get out of it

01:34:03   as Apple is you get coverage.

01:34:06   And that coverage is good publicity.

01:34:10   And when I like something, it's good for you.

01:34:12   But if I always liked everything, it wouldn't mean anything.

01:34:15   So you just have to ride it.

01:34:17   If you're a PR person, you just gotta ride it.

01:34:19   Like Jason's not always gonna be positive

01:34:20   about what we do or about these things.

01:34:22   And we just have to deal with it.

01:34:24   'Cause as a kind of creator, you can't live your life

01:34:27   being like, oh, geez, I hope Apple doesn't revoke my access

01:34:31   because I said something mean about it.

01:34:32   about them. You kind of can't. Some people do and I understand how some people can fall

01:34:36   into that like because it depends what you do. But like I don't think it's that helpful.

01:34:42   The thing that I learned early on is don't make it personal. Yeah like there I witnessed

01:34:47   people make it personal about people at Apple. Like literally calling people out and saying

01:34:53   you know this person is clueless or whatever and it's like first off I what I learned is

01:34:59   we don't know, right?

01:35:00   We don't know what's actually happening

01:35:01   inside the black box.

01:35:02   We have these characters who are people we know at Apple,

01:35:04   but we don't really know what they do.

01:35:06   We don't really know what their role is.

01:35:08   We don't.

01:35:09   And there are other people we don't know,

01:35:10   and they're probably just as important.

01:35:13   But I have seen people kind of trash their relationship

01:35:15   with Apple or other companies by making it very personal.

01:35:19   And to me, it's like, it's not about the people,

01:35:21   it's about the products, it's about the strategies,

01:35:23   it's about the services.

01:35:24   That's what it's about.

01:35:26   So that is, if I do have one flag in my brain

01:35:29   about keeping good relations with Apple,

01:35:31   it's literally I've boiled it down to professionalism,

01:35:34   which is, this is not, I'm not making this personal.

01:35:37   Not only is that not my focus,

01:35:39   the personality's inside Apple, and I don't know,

01:35:42   so why would I even go down that path?

01:35:45   So just keep it professional, don't make it personal.

01:35:47   - Either, right, and I feel like maybe that's appreciated.

01:35:51   And also, I find it very rare that I've had a complaint

01:35:53   where maybe somebody's brought up and they haven't in some way agreed with me or like

01:35:58   given me some kind of challenge which is interesting. Like I don't feel like I say wild things,

01:36:03   same as you, right? So like that kind of stuff doesn't bother me. But to go back to the

01:36:07   like the other part of the question because I answered it backwards. Have you ever tried

01:36:12   to develop contacts of Apple employees in an attempt to gather insider information?

01:36:16   So there's a podcaster that I enjoy, Greg Miller. He is, they do basically what we do,

01:36:23   in video games, right?

01:36:25   They do the kind of funny shows,

01:36:27   it was the show that I gave as my podcast of the year

01:36:30   was one of their shows.

01:36:31   And he was recently talking about this

01:36:33   in a way that I really resonated where he says,

01:36:35   "He knows things that's going on in video games,

01:36:38   "but it is not his job to break news, they report on news."

01:36:42   - Right, yep.

01:36:43   - And like that was what you kind of,

01:36:45   what you were saying too a minute ago.

01:36:46   And it's like, there are things that I know

01:36:50   that somebody has told me that I don't talk about.

01:36:52   Doesn't happen very often, but it happens.

01:36:54   - Sure, it does happen.

01:36:56   - It's not, I don't see it as my responsibility here

01:37:01   to try and give you breaking news.

01:37:04   I'm more of, and the way I look at our show here

01:37:08   is like say with Rumor Roundup, things are reported,

01:37:10   we talk about what's been reported.

01:37:12   And I think that that makes a lot more sense

01:37:15   than somebody's told me this thing.

01:37:18   It's just like a little thing somebody's told me

01:37:19   most of the time.

01:37:20   It's like, I can't really do anything with this.

01:37:21   There's kind of no point.

01:37:22   I'll just keep it in my back pocket.

01:37:24   Like it's just a piece of information I know,

01:37:25   but I can't do anything with it.

01:37:27   - What I value for that stuff, I agree.

01:37:29   That's exactly it, which is like,

01:37:30   it's not my job to root out secrets and break them.

01:37:35   It's like, again, not saying that isn't a valid job.

01:37:38   That's not what I have chosen.

01:37:39   - It really is.

01:37:40   We have a whole segment at this show

01:37:42   that relies on people doing it.

01:37:43   - We paid for art for the chapter,

01:37:46   if you haven't seen it, just look sometime.

01:37:47   It's amazing.

01:37:48   Yes, but it's not my job.

01:37:49   I've chosen not to do that job.

01:37:51   However, sometimes you get information

01:37:53   and it's great when it adds context, right?

01:37:54   Like I like hearing from people who know stuff

01:37:58   about what Apple has done or is doing

01:38:01   because it helps my understanding

01:38:03   'cause we talk a lot about the black box, right?

01:38:05   We talk a lot about that.

01:38:06   So when I said I got some inkling earlier,

01:38:10   you know, in the last week about our talk about like,

01:38:13   was there a time when Apple, you know,

01:38:16   when Apple thought the iPad was the future and the Mac

01:38:18   was a legacy product that was gonna go away.

01:38:20   And I got some feedback saying, yeah, basically, yeah,

01:38:23   but without a lot of detail.

01:38:26   But again, and it's like, okay, well, that's interesting.

01:38:28   It's good to know that we're not completely off.

01:38:30   It would have been interesting if somebody said, no,

01:38:31   that's absolutely never the case.

01:38:32   I'd be like, oh, well, that's interesting.

01:38:33   I need to recalibrate, right?

01:38:34   Like that stuff can help.

01:38:36   And it can help to know when we're talking about,

01:38:38   like, are they even gonna ship this thing

01:38:40   or what's going on with the VR headset?

01:38:42   You know, I have heard again from like people in the,

01:38:45   like that the hardware is like, it's done, it's ready.

01:38:48   It's ready, they're probably making them.

01:38:50   I don't know that for sure.

01:38:51   But that is not a question, that product exists.

01:38:54   And that's interesting,

01:38:56   before I heard about them showing it to the top 100.

01:38:59   So context can help and it can help your analysis of it.

01:39:03   But that's not the same, it's not the same.

01:39:06   But I do love that stuff.

01:39:07   I do love the, and if people wanna send it to us,

01:39:10   like go ahead.

01:39:11   - I was just gonna say,

01:39:12   and now if you heard this and you work at Apple,

01:39:14   you know we're not gonna tell people the information.

01:39:17   So if you wanna just give it to us, we'll take it.

01:39:18   - No, but no, but no, that's the problem though,

01:39:21   is if it's, I can tell you this, but you can't report it,

01:39:23   then everything gets weird, right?

01:39:24   Because then you're like, if I know, if we do a draft,

01:39:28   and I know that there's a 15 inch MacBook Air

01:39:30   that's coming out, I know it hard, clear from sources,

01:39:35   I can't pick it from the draft.

01:39:37   I can't write a speculative column about what it might be,

01:39:40   because now I'm burning my sources,

01:39:42   because I know exactly what it might be.

01:39:43   I kind of don't wanna play that game.

01:39:45   - That's all part of the gentleman's agreement.

01:39:46   - That's the gentleman's agreement, right?

01:39:48   - It is, I don't wanna play that game.

01:39:50   So yeah, it's tricky.

01:39:52   And the answer, but the overarching answer

01:39:54   I wanted to give Colin is,

01:39:56   part of it is you choose your career path.

01:40:00   And sometimes you don't,

01:40:01   sometimes you're thrown into a particular job

01:40:03   and you have to do it.

01:40:04   But also sometimes you gravitate toward the things you like

01:40:06   and the things you want to do.

01:40:07   And if you are fortunate enough to be able to do that,

01:40:10   it will take you away from other things.

01:40:12   And going out on my own,

01:40:13   I can literally make my job anything I want.

01:40:16   And I chose things that I thought I could do

01:40:18   that would allow me to make a living,

01:40:20   that would be things that would make me happy

01:40:21   and fulfilled as a professional person.

01:40:24   And some combination of those is why I don't have a,

01:40:28   I don't break Apple rumors,

01:40:30   because it's not a thing that I'm particularly good at,

01:40:34   so it would take a huge amount of effort

01:40:35   to try to be better at it.

01:40:36   I've got other stuff that I think I'm good at

01:40:38   that I am doing, so in the end, that's what I've chosen.

01:40:41   And that's like, that's a lesson I had to learn,

01:40:43   'cause coming from Macworld, I was like,

01:40:45   let's cover everything.

01:40:46   I've got a staff, you write about this,

01:40:47   you write about this, we'll cover everything.

01:40:49   And then I go out on my own and then Dan Morin too,

01:40:52   but like even with two of us, it's like just two people.

01:40:57   Like there's literally not enough time in the week

01:41:00   to do everything or even a fraction of everything.

01:41:03   You really have to pick your spots.

01:41:06   - All right, thank you for listening

01:41:07   to this episode of Upgrade.

01:41:09   You can send us your feedback, follow up,

01:41:11   and you'll ask upgrade questions over at UpgradeFeedback.com.

01:41:16   In the meantime before next week's episode you can check out Jason's writing at SixColors.com

01:41:21   and hear his podcasts at TheIncomparable.com and here on RelayFM like downstream which we

01:41:26   were talking about earlier on the show. You can listen to my podcasts here on RelayFM and check

01:41:30   out my work over at CortexBrand.com. We're both on Mastodon, you can find Jason on Zeppelin.Flights

01:41:37   as @jsnell and you can find me on mike.social as @imike. Thank you to our members who support

01:41:44   us with Upgrade Plus. You can go to getupgradeplus.com and sign up. This week we're going to be talking

01:41:50   about our experience of using Raycast for the last week in the latest Upgrade Plus challenge.

01:41:56   I want to thank our sponsors again, Electric, Setapp and Zocdoc for their support of this week's

01:42:01   episode and helping to make it possible. But the people that make it most possible are you. Thank

01:42:06   Thank you for listening.

01:42:08   We'll be back next time.

01:42:09   Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:42:11   - Goodbye, Mike Hurley.

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