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Upgrade

470: Magic Titanium

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:09 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 470. Today's show is brought to you by

00:00:14 ◼   ► TexExpander. My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snow. Hi, Jason.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Avengers Assemble! Okay. Or something. I don't know. Some are fun. Some are fun indeed. Some are fun.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Some are... we had a conversation before the show about the Avengers, which is... Yes, and about

00:00:34 ◼   ► Banana Man. Yep. UK superhero Banana Man, who I had never heard of. No. Okay, so quick primer. Banana Man

00:00:42 ◼   ► was a superhero-like character from a comic called The Dandy. Banana Man was a boy and when he ate

00:00:52 ◼   ► a banana, he turned into a superhero called Banana Man. Yeah, potassium. We were talking about that before the show.

00:00:56 ◼   ► It's good for you, kids. I mean, it feels like maybe there's like some Popeye in there a little bit, you know?

00:01:02 ◼   ► Maybe this was like financed by the banana board or something? That's exactly what I was

00:01:06 ◼   ► going to say. It feels a little bit like some money from the banana sellers went toward this.

00:01:10 ◼   ► Oh, to be an adult and lose that innocence of childhood. There's always money in the banana

00:01:16 ◼   ► stand. In the banana stand, it's true. There always is. I have a snow-tall question to open today's show

00:01:21 ◼   ► correctly rather than what we just opened with. It comes from Ramon who asks, "What is the first thing

00:01:26 ◼   ► that you do to decompress after recording a podcast?" Oh, I'm curious about your answer here, too, but

00:01:33 ◼   ► I'll answer first. A lot of times when I finish a podcast, there's ancillary work to be done,

00:01:39 ◼   ► so I'm not allowed to decompress, right? So like for an incomparable podcast, when I finish, I collect

00:01:45 ◼   ► all the files, I have to upload the bootleg. If it's a TPK or something, we have video, I have to

00:01:51 ◼   ► take the video file that was done on the live stream and encode that and post it for the people

00:01:57 ◼   ► because members can get it as a video podcast. There's a whole... pass it on to the editor. There's

00:02:02 ◼   ► a whole bunch of steps that happen before I can even step away. And then for those, which are

00:02:09 ◼   ► usually in the evening, what I do to decompress is walk out like a zombie into my living room

00:02:15 ◼   ► and my wife and I will watch something on TV that does not require much of my brain, and that's about

00:02:20 ◼   ► it. For upgrade, lately it's been really tough because of our new video venture that we're doing.

00:02:29 ◼   ► When I'm done with upgrade, I mean, I will get up and like move my legs around and maybe get a cup

00:02:35 ◼   ► of tea or get something to drink or something like that, but then I come right back here

00:02:38 ◼   ► and get Mike's video file and my video file and put them together in Final Cut, and I look at the

00:02:43 ◼   ► show notes to see what we've got as our markers for clips that we might want to generate. And

00:02:48 ◼   ► right now I'm generating those clips and then passing them on to Jamie, our social media intern.

00:02:54 ◼   ► So yeah, usually after that it is like I'm making lunch or I'm walking the dog or some combination

00:03:04 ◼   ► thereof, but it is true, and I wonder if you find this, Mike, that after doing a podcast and having

00:03:10 ◼   ► that kind of intensity, my brain needs a break after that. It really does. You can feel like

00:03:17 ◼   ► I need to do something else for a little while because my brain's a little melted.

00:03:21 ◼   ► I have that feeling sometimes, but rarely. I think I've been doing this for so long and so often,

00:03:30 ◼   ► I just carry on with whatever next thing is in my day. There are times where, you know,

00:03:36 ◼   ► like some Cortex episodes, me and Grey are like on the phone for like six hours, right? And after

00:03:42 ◼   ► those, I need a little bit of a break, but like when we're done with upgrade, today what I'll do

00:03:47 ◼   ► is I'll go do my journal because it's time for journaling. I'll pack up my bag and I'll go home.

00:03:51 ◼   ► Like that's a reasonable break. That's like me getting up and going and making myself lunch or

00:03:58 ◼   ► just getting a drink and then coming back and jumping back in because I can't, I mean,

00:04:01 ◼   ► I have to work the rest of the day. So that much is true. I don't know. There's something about

00:04:05 ◼   ► being comparable. Maybe it's that it's in the evening and also that I'm doing the,

00:04:08 ◼   ► you know, I'm doing the hosting and arbitrating between many panelists, but that one seems more

00:04:14 ◼   ► strenuous than, but this one, I still, you know, I still want to take a little bit of a break. I

00:04:20 ◼   ► don't want to remain seated and then just begin the video. I at least try to stretch my legs and,

00:04:25 ◼   ► and like I said, you know, have a, get a soda or whatever, just something to break the monotony.

00:04:30 ◼   ► Yeah. I think for me, like most days where I record a podcast, I am recording multiple

00:04:37 ◼   ► podcasts. So it's like, I just, I've gotten used to that. I just go to the next one.

00:04:44 ◼   ► That is, that's a lot. I've done it this way since the very beginning. So like, for me, this is,

00:04:50 ◼   ► it's just normal. But I do know that like, and I understand, like, it's, it's like, if you have any

00:04:54 ◼   ► long meeting, like if you have like a two hour meeting, like it's just a little tax. You want to,

00:04:59 ◼   ► you want to take a, you want to take a little refresher. So usually for me, that'll be a,

00:05:03 ◼   ► you know, something like walk the dog or, or, or make some lunch or just something to, to have,

00:05:07 ◼   ► like, cause also working at home, um, a lot of what I do is sort of like, uh, trying to create

00:05:14 ◼   ► little gaps, little refreshment gaps where it's like, okay, I'm going to stop doing this. I'm

00:05:18 ◼   ► going to take a little tiny gap and it doesn't have to be long even. And then I'm going to jump

00:05:22 ◼   ► into this next thing. Cause I want there to, I don't want to feel like I've just stayed on

00:05:25 ◼   ► the treadmill. I want to have a little bit more beyond that. Yeah. I mean, like there are lots

00:05:30 ◼   ► of productivity, like, uh, thinkings that subscribe to that fear, like the Pomodoro

00:05:35 ◼   ► technique or whatever, like that you would, that you're supposed to work intensely, take a break,

00:05:39 ◼   ► quick and as they like, honestly, after, after sitting here for two hours doing this podcast,

00:05:43 ◼   ► the, I know that that final cut task right now is going to take some time. Yeah. And I want to give

00:05:50 ◼   ► myself a little bit of a gap before I sit back down to do that, you know, five minutes even,

00:05:55 ◼   ► because having that going from one level of intensity to another level of intensity,

00:06:01 ◼   ► all without a little bit of a gap is, is a bit much. So, um, yeah. Yeah. It's a good question.

00:06:07 ◼   ► It is. It's funny. And you're right, Mike, to point out that the level of

00:06:11 ◼   ► difficulty can really vary between podcasts. Right? Like I don't, I, you know, if I talked to

00:06:19 ◼   ► Scott McNulty about a Star Trek episode or something like that, that's not, that's like,

00:06:23 ◼   ► not even work. It's not a problem. But if I'm, if I'm wrangling five panelists on the incomparable

00:06:29 ◼   ► or, you know, spending two hours in front of a video camera for twit for Mac break weekly,

00:06:36 ◼   ► right? Like that's the, those are more intense. That's a different thing. Because there's a more

00:06:41 ◼   ► focus and you're on. Yeah, exactly. If you would like to send in a question to help us

00:06:47 ◼   ► answer a future episode of the show, just go to upgradefeedback.com and send us in a Snell talk.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Thank you to Ramon for that great question. I have some follow up for you, Jason Snow. I have quite a

00:06:58 ◼   ► few items of follow up for you today. I have more on the LOL emoji, if you could believe it. Great.

00:07:03 ◼   ► Anthony wrote in and said, I use an Australian English keyboard on iOS, and it seems to suggest

00:07:09 ◼   ► the same thing Mike is getting for British English. I get the same three emoji that Mike is getting.

00:07:15 ◼   ► So it's not just the British English keyboard, it's the Australian English keyboard as well.

00:07:20 ◼   ► So it seems like there's like some kind of anti non American English, like rhetoric going on here

00:07:27 ◼   ► with the emoji. I did want to give an update that in the newest beta, I guess this is kind of a

00:07:32 ◼   ► btale but the the ruffle, you know, we had the rolling on the floor laughing emoji that has been

00:07:38 ◼   ► replaced now to face with tears of joy, which is one of the original that should be in there.

00:07:45 ◼   ► So we are now just two down one to go. So what we're still hoping for here is the winking face

00:07:53 ◼   ► with tongue emoji to be replaced with grinning squinting face and then we'll be back to normal.

00:08:01 ◼   ► So slowly getting there. Grinning squinting face is the goal. That's what I'm wanting. Yeah.

00:08:07 ◼   ► The one with the like the winking face with the tongue is just not good. It's just not

00:08:15 ◼   ► lol or all. That is not an lol in the least. Neither was a rolling on the floor laughing.

00:08:22 ◼   ► No, it's got its own thing. That's a that's a ruffle is ruffle. lol lol is lol. That's just it.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Ruffle is ruffle. lol is lol. And and grin and GSF the grinning squinting face is GSF.

00:08:37 ◼   ► GSF. Everyone knows GSF. GSF or GTFO. Okay.

00:08:41 ◼   ► There we go. We got it. We landed on it. I wanted to talk more about the less fun thing,

00:08:49 ◼   ► the online safety bill that I was talking about on the last episode. Oh, yay. I was both

00:08:55 ◼   ► saddened and understanding of the of how many people wrote in to tell me that they live in

00:09:01 ◼   ► the United Kingdom and had no idea this was happening, which was my experience too, right?

00:09:06 ◼   ► But it makes me sad that this has gotten by so many people. And in the last episode,

00:09:13 ◼   ► I posited a theory that this might be Apple's fault with the CSAM scanning. Yeah, I have received

00:09:21 ◼   ► some communication from my local member of parliament who says, I do not believe that

00:09:27 ◼   ► the legislation impacting private messaging will damage this encryption as a variety of technologies

00:09:33 ◼   ► are emerging that could allow for scanning on issues such as child sexual abuse material

00:09:37 ◼   ► while retaining the privacy benefits afforded by end to end encryption. So after reading this,

00:09:45 ◼   ► 100% in my mind, they saw the on-device CSAM scanning and that unlocked for them

00:09:52 ◼   ► of like, oh no, this can't be done. Now, this wasn't Apple's intention. I understand that.

00:09:57 ◼   ► But even without this technology having been implemented, it unlocked the Pandora's box that

00:10:04 ◼   ► we thought it was going to. When we were talking about this, whether a couple of years ago or

00:10:10 ◼   ► whatever, it was with this kind of stuff in mind that once you show that there is a way to do

00:10:17 ◼   ► on-device snooping, you have highlighted to anyone in around the world that this kind of technology

00:10:25 ◼   ► is available and what pressures that may then put on Apple from worldwide governments.

00:10:32 ◼   ► And even though they never implemented it, I believe it's one of the reasons why our

00:10:39 ◼   ► government feel like they are able to implement this and be able to say, hey, we're fine with

00:10:46 ◼   ► encryption. Right? As long as your, yeah, as long as your software is snooping on you before it gets

00:10:51 ◼   ► encrypted, we're okay with it. Yeah, this is the, we talked last week, it was the title, I think,

00:10:56 ◼   ► about the, that bring in the boffins moment, which is this belief that the, you know, tech wizards

00:11:02 ◼   ► will solve anything and something like this gives more ammunition to the bring in the boffins

00:11:10 ◼   ► argument. Right? Which is, we look, we didn't say you have to not encrypt things. We just said you

00:11:18 ◼   ► have to find a way to do what we want while also encrypting them is fine. You can do that,

00:11:24 ◼   ► but you got to be able to do what we want. And, yeah, well, I guess we'll see.

00:11:29 ◼   ► And I just want to, you know, just as a point, my member of parliament is a member of the

00:11:34 ◼   ► Labour Party. Like this is a cross party thing, right? Like there, this isn't just like a Tory

00:11:41 ◼   ► thing, right? Like this is my, my main concern about this legislation is that there's, once it's

00:11:49 ◼   ► done, it's done because all governments are going to want this because of what it could allow them

00:11:54 ◼   ► to do. And there is no good or bad in this scenario. And if you're the minority parties

00:12:00 ◼   ► seeking power, which Labour absolutely is, you know, you're also trying to search. We talked

00:12:05 ◼   ► last week about how politicians don't want to ever be seen as, as being, they don't want to ruin your

00:12:10 ◼   ► your phone, but they also don't want to seem weak on, you know, fairly easy issues like protecting

00:12:16 ◼   ► us from terrorism and things like that. If you're the minority party running for power, the last

00:12:20 ◼   ► thing you want is to hand your opposition something like they're soft on child sex abuse materials and

00:12:26 ◼   ► terrorism. Yeah. And that's right. And that's just like an easy thing there. But, but then also it's

00:12:32 ◼   ► just like, I don't believe we have good and bad, um, like political parties. They, everything's a

00:12:41 ◼   ► level of gray and they would love to be able to snoop for whatever it is they need to snoop for

00:12:48 ◼   ► when they're in power, the same as whatever government might want it now. And I think that

00:12:52 ◼   ► we shouldn't have this technology implemented, but I fear that we, the genie is out of the bottle now.

00:12:58 ◼   ► Could be. Lionel M.L.S.C. Do you like that?

00:13:03 ◼   ► Ah, yes. Um, sure.

00:13:05 ◼   ► That's pretty good, right? Because it basically just is Lionel M.L.S.C. now. The entire major

00:13:10 ◼   ► league soccer organization is just spearheaded by Lionel M.S.C. Uh, and it seems to have started

00:13:18 ◼   ► well. I think I got a push notification on my phone of like, along the lines of like,

00:13:23 ◼   ► from Apple TV of like, watch Lionel M.S.C. against whatever team.

00:13:28 ◼   ► Yeah. He's just, he's, he takes him on himself now. He's that good.

00:13:32 ◼   ► It's been going very well. I've got reporting from the Verge here. He says, while Apple did not

00:13:37 ◼   ► release specific numbers in a statement, Apple spokesperson, Tom Newmayors suggests, explained

00:13:43 ◼   ► that the week of July 19th to 26th had the quote three most watched matches ever on M.L.S.C's and

00:13:51 ◼   ► pass. I like ever like ever's doing a lot of work here on the thing that's a year old.

00:13:54 ◼   ► Ever. In all time, ever dating all the way back to February.

00:14:02 ◼   ► With viewers in almost 100 countries and regions around the world and the fans for those matches

00:14:09 ◼   ► were roughly split between the M.L.S.C. season pass in English and Spanish language.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Yeah. A lot of people in Argentina, especially I would think watching that.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Yeah. Uh, and I saw like, it feels like Apple was continuing to double down on the recent success

00:14:26 ◼   ► with like the multi platform of M.L.S. that they now have a new podcast and M.L.S. podcast called

00:14:35 ◼   ► offside of Taylor Twelman, who was a M.L.S. player sometime ago. And a commentator, one of the more

00:14:41 ◼   ► popular, I think TV commentators, Taylor Twelman. Yeah, I think so. Uh, so this is similar to like

00:14:47 ◼   ► the way that I look at this is like similar to their behind the scenes, like TV plus podcasts

00:14:51 ◼   ► where, because this is produced by, I think it's Apple and they're working with a production

00:14:56 ◼   ► company as well. They can just have access to, I guess, kind of anyone like the most recent episode

00:15:02 ◼   ► features, uh, is it your gay mass? Okay. Mass is the, is the owner of Inter Miami owner of

00:15:08 ◼   ► Inter Miami. Yeah. And yeah, this is like, he's a partner of Apple. Yep. Uh, Taylor Twelman is one

00:15:14 ◼   ► of Apple's top, I think, uh, commentary people for M.L.S. season pass. Uh, so now that you do a

00:15:20 ◼   ► podcast, it's all, you know, it's all, this is, this is what's really interesting about this deal,

00:15:25 ◼   ► even for people, uh, who roll their eyes at MLS and people outside the U S who roll their eyes

00:15:30 ◼   ► at it because it's a smaller league, a lower quality league and people inside the U S roll

00:15:34 ◼   ► their eyes at it because it's soccer. But what's really interesting about it is you've also got

00:15:39 ◼   ► this case where you've got a streaming platform in total alignment with the league. And what does

00:15:45 ◼   ► that mean? Like, and they're just starting to try, they're trying stuff and they're, they're

00:15:50 ◼   ► figuring it out and it's very interesting. And I am, I will tell you, I'm sure every other

00:15:57 ◼   ► sport league in the world is paying attention to this, right? Just because like, what does this

00:16:02 ◼   ► mean for the future of this sort of thing? And until I've been reading this book, um,

00:16:07 ◼   ► actually about soccer, uh, by Rory Smith called expected goals. Um, that that's about sort of

00:16:15 ◼   ► like the impact of money ball kind of thinking on soccer. And one of the points in the book is the

00:16:21 ◼   ► truth is that in any of these sports, um, there's a lot of followers. So they want to, people don't

00:16:29 ◼   ► want to be an outlier. They don't want to be different. And so they are going to be

00:16:33 ◼   ► resistance to change, resistant to change until the moment when somebody else does it. And if

00:16:40 ◼   ► somebody else does it and it looks good, then they feel free to do it and they'll immediately do it.

00:16:45 ◼   ► Um, and this MLS deal with Apple feels to me like a really great now somebody's doing it moment and

00:16:55 ◼   ► everybody else is going to pay attention to it. And if it works, they'll rip off the stuff that

00:17:00 ◼   ► works and they won't do the stuff that doesn't work. But I think that's what's so fascinating

00:17:04 ◼   ► about it is that the, the Apple is a streamer, um, and MLS as a league and they're like tightly

00:17:12 ◼   ► integrated, right? They are shoulder to shoulder on this product. This is, this is both of those

00:17:17 ◼   ► companies and the company in the league working together to make this happen.

00:17:21 ◼   ► Which is, you should say like, we've, and we spoke about it at the time, we spoke about it

00:17:26 ◼   ► multiple times. This is just a thing that's not really ever happened in this way before.

00:17:30 ◼   ► Like getting rights is very different to like what Apple is doing with the MLS here, where they are

00:17:35 ◼   ► like, they are in lock step of each other over the, like the way things are presented, the movement

00:17:42 ◼   ► of the sport, right? Like they are actual real partners rather than just like a provider of

00:17:48 ◼   ► something, you know, like you, whether you're the provider of the sport or the provider of the

00:17:52 ◼   ► cables to put out the wall on, which is typically how these things are done, but Apple and the major

00:17:58 ◼   ► league soccer are effectively together on this one. Yeah. Yeah. And, and by the way, there are

00:18:04 ◼   ► rumors out there that Apple is talking to other soccer leagues too. Of course. Um, it's going to

00:18:10 ◼   ► be smaller ones. I don't know whether they're still rumored to be, um, talking to the Dutch league.

00:18:16 ◼   ► Um, but like they're, you know, they're interested in this and there could be synergies there as well.

00:18:22 ◼   ► Um, and as they learn things about dealing with soccer for MLS, they may go to other places too.

00:18:27 ◼   ► It's it's yeah, it's, this is look sports broadcasting is not going to be the same in

00:18:33 ◼   ► 10 years or 15 years, right? It's going to be radically different. And I mean, but how different

00:18:38 ◼   ► in a year, right? It could be, I mean, it's changing rapidly, but, but it's going to, but

00:18:44 ◼   ► where, where does it lead? What is it? It's more final form. Um, remains to be seen, but this is

00:18:49 ◼   ► something that is, uh, definitely worth everybody paying attention because it's going to give us

00:18:55 ◼   ► some clues about where this is all going. And a report from the sports business journal says

00:19:00 ◼   ► addressing the MLS board of governors just days before the world's greatest soccer player, Lionel

00:19:05 ◼   ► Messi would debut fit into Miami. Eddie Q smiled at the group and told them, boy, did you deliver.

00:19:11 ◼   ► And nearly five months into its first season with Apple holding its media rights, MLS executive and

00:19:17 ◼   ► owners both publicly and privately said they are very happy with the results so far. Yeah.

00:19:23 ◼   ► Speaking, I'm just going to put this out there because I thought it was such a great piece. Um,

00:19:28 ◼   ► Rory Smith, who is the soccer columnist who wrote the book that I'm reading soccer columnists for

00:19:33 ◼   ► the New York times and excellent writer, just a really good writer. And he wrote a column,

00:19:38 ◼   ► um, right before the world cup about the messy signing. And what he said was everybody in America

00:19:50 ◼   ► keeps talking about, and Jorge Mas talked about this, uh, that this is the moment like, oh,

00:19:55 ◼   ► this is the moment when America gets soccer and the Beckham signing was, this is the moment that

00:19:59 ◼   ► America gets soccer. And, um, Rory Smith's point was, um, that they're all missing it.

00:20:07 ◼   ► And that we've already passed that point. Um, not to say that there isn't much, much more growth

00:20:13 ◼   ► possible with MLS in terms of money and in terms of teams and in terms of professional soccer in

00:20:17 ◼   ► the United States, but the idea that people in soccer confuse, um, primacy for success.

00:20:29 ◼   ► And the idea there is everybody else in the world doesn't understand why soccer isn't the number one

00:20:34 ◼   ► sport in America and isn't the number one sport in Australia. Uh, and isn't the number one sport in

00:20:39 ◼   ► India and, uh, can't get over that to realize that they're successful. In fact, more Americans say

00:20:47 ◼   ► that they're a fan of whatever that means soccer than hockey now, right? Like, so it is moving up

00:20:53 ◼   ► in the ranks. Plus it's the second most popular participatory sport in America behind basketball.

00:21:00 ◼   ► So Rory Smith's point is basically America has already embraced soccer. It's got a league with

00:21:06 ◼   ► 29 teams and the quality is growing, even though it's not at the level of even like the French

00:21:12 ◼   ► league at this point, it's growing. And, uh, a deal like the Apple deal, I would say is it only

00:21:19 ◼   ► helps that case, but it's also a, I would say a soccer expert saying, look, everybody who's

00:21:26 ◼   ► waiting for that magical moment when the U S got soccer, like the U S got soccer, putting all of

00:21:31 ◼   ► the, uh, the major European leagues. They're all available in the U S on TV now and have been for

00:21:39 ◼   ► the last few years. Like the soccer culture in America is growing by leaps and bounds. And, and

00:21:45 ◼   ► if you're waiting for that magic moment where it's bigger than the NFL, let me tell you,

00:21:50 ◼   ► it's never going to happen and it doesn't need to be how it's judged. So, um, I think that the

00:21:55 ◼   ► Messi stuff has been a little overblown, but, um, but it's good for the league and it's good for its

00:22:00 ◼   ► visibility and it's good for the sport, um, in the U S and potentially out. I would imagine,

00:22:05 ◼   ► I really am waiting for that story of like the people in Latin America who are, who are getting

00:22:09 ◼   ► to watch Messi at a better time of day and, and, uh, and, uh, in, and how they like, uh, Apple

00:22:16 ◼   ► Spanish language broadcast people in Argentina, how are they feeling about it? Um, I haven't seen

00:22:20 ◼   ► those stories, but, uh, we'll keep watching it and they'll keep playing soccer. So.

00:22:24 ◼   ► Pontner, do you want to saddle up? Oh, uh, let me see. I, yeah. Okay. Saddle. Yep. All right.

00:22:32 ◼   ► Right. Right. Ride them cowboy. We're going to ride on down to round up. All right.

00:22:36 ◼   ► Mark. Gorman has published the article that I look forward to every year, which is his,

00:22:41 ◼   ► what can we expect from Apple in the fall? And so usually these things we've heard some level of

00:22:48 ◼   ► them. Um, we've heard things that may or may not be in what Mark Gorman is talking about in his

00:22:54 ◼   ► newsletter, but this is, I always feel like a real good, like this is the yardstick for what we can

00:23:00 ◼   ► and cannot expect to come from Apple in September. I agree with regards to the iPhone and the Apple

00:23:06 ◼   ► watch. So I'm going to go through some of the things that Mark spoke about. So with the phones,

00:23:11 ◼   ► with kind of screen stuff, we're going to see the dynamic Island across all the phones. So the 15 to

00:23:16 ◼   ► 15, uh, plus pro and max will all have the dynamic Island now, but the pro phones are going to get a

00:23:24 ◼   ► new, a new display made from a new kind of process called low injection pressure over-molding LIPO.

00:23:32 ◼   ► When I originally read this, I was like, isn't this, they are no LTPO is what's in them right

00:23:38 ◼   ► now, which is about the, which is a different thing is LTPO. It allows the always on display.

00:23:44 ◼   ► It's something it's an acronym like that, but that is a completely different thing to what this is,

00:23:49 ◼   ► which is how the screen is made. Basically the reason Apple will move to this process

00:23:54 ◼   ► is it allows for the bezels to shrink. Currently the bezels on the pro phones is to a 2.2 millimeters.

00:24:00 ◼   ► This is going to bring it down to 1.5 millimeters. So all the time getting smaller and smaller and

00:24:05 ◼   ► smaller. If this becomes a thing, can we rename the room around up the LIPO section? We most

00:24:11 ◼   ► certainly can, Jason. Okay. Just, well, just in case, in case we have a whole segment,

00:24:16 ◼   ► it's just about low injection pressure over-molding. I want that segment to be called

00:24:20 ◼   ► I think LIPO section. The segment you are currently in, in room around up, it may be the

00:24:25 ◼   ► only time we ever talk about this. So we will say that right now, this is the LIPO section of room

00:24:30 ◼   ► around up. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. This screen technology, LIPO, was first used by Apple in the

00:24:38 ◼   ► Apple watch series seven. And it was there again to like help them make the bezel smaller and

00:24:43 ◼   ► smaller on the screens. And Mark Gurman is also saying that he expects that Apple will use this

00:24:48 ◼   ► process with the iPad as well in the future. It's all just about like less and less and less

00:24:53 ◼   ► border required around a screen. Yeah. That's, that's bottom line here is Apple hates, the lead

00:24:58 ◼   ► of his piece was about this too, which I've thought for a while now, which is what is Apple's

00:25:03 ◼   ► vision of the ultimate iPhone? And the answer is no bezel, no cutouts, just screen. And so the,

00:25:14 ◼   ► like, reduced cutouts and the dynamic island and all that is part of it. And then always,

00:25:18 ◼   ► always just trying to get the bezel to be smaller. And, and I know there are people who will say,

00:25:24 ◼   ► come on, it's fine. Right. But Apple just doesn't think it's fine. Apple keeps thinking that

00:25:29 ◼   ► the less bezel, the better, and is spending a lot of time and resources trying to engineer

00:25:34 ◼   ► new methods of mounting these displays so that they can get that bezel down from like

00:25:39 ◼   ► 2.2 millimeters to 1.5 millimeters, which those are both very small numbers, but one of them is

00:25:46 ◼   ► a lot smaller than the other one. And Apple cares, right? Apple cares. And I think people care. I

00:25:52 ◼   ► think, I think if you look at a back at a, an older phone that you use with a bigger bezel,

00:25:58 ◼   ► you would say, you would say, ew, gross. Right. Like even you might not, you get used to it real

00:26:04 ◼   ► fast, but I think going backward, you see it. Yep. And you know, this is like one of those

00:26:10 ◼   ► things like I could really appreciate of like, well, when you're a designer at Apple, you know,

00:26:14 ◼   ► you have all of the resources in the world available to you. And if you have a goal that

00:26:20 ◼   ► you want to achieve, you just keep taking chunks out of it until you get there. And this is another

00:26:24 ◼   ► one. There's still a bezel, but it's smaller. And then maybe in another five years, they'll come

00:26:29 ◼   ► across another process and they make it even smaller, right? They just keep going and going

00:26:33 ◼   ► and going until the edge of the phone screen is the edge of the phone. And that's it because who

00:26:40 ◼   ► wouldn't want that? It would be beautiful. The 15 and 15 plus will get quote major camera

00:26:46 ◼   ► improvements as well as the A16 chip, which is in the 14 pro. Remember the iPhone 14 did not get a

00:26:55 ◼   ► processor upgrade at all, right? Like it actually just stuck around, but this is going to be putting

00:27:00 ◼   ► the A16 into there. No detail on major camera improvements. Do you think it's going to be the

00:27:07 ◼   ► 48 megapixel sensor? I mean, it might be. It could be just rolling that in to the lower end model

00:27:15 ◼   ► and then upgrading the higher end model even further. Like that could be. My hope with that is

00:27:22 ◼   ► they put the 48 megapixel camera sensor everywhere and then actually unlock the true potential of

00:27:28 ◼   ► that. Cause I don't feel like we got it right with the 14 pro. Like the sensor is there and you can,

00:27:35 ◼   ► you know, you can take an image in certain circumstances or using other apps where you can

00:27:41 ◼   ► get the full sensor and it can look amazing and get some great detail out of it if it's processed

00:27:46 ◼   ► correctly. But I feel like I and many others were hoping that it would make some kind of leap in

00:27:54 ◼   ► like the overall image quality. And I don't think it has. I will actually say I've been kind of

00:27:58 ◼   ► frustrated recently with the 14 pro by adding that sensor in they need to enable the macro sensor

00:28:08 ◼   ► way too often for me and the macro quote unquote, which is the ultra wide, it doesn't look as good.

00:28:14 ◼   ► And so there are times where I'm trying to take a picture of something close up and it has to switch

00:28:18 ◼   ► over and then they end up with a worse photo because of the fact that I have the higher sensor.

00:28:23 ◼   ► So like, I don't really feel like I'm getting the benefit most of the time for a lot of the things

00:28:29 ◼   ► that I want to take pictures of. So I wonder if, I wonder if what they might do is put that high

00:28:36 ◼   ► end sensor on the lower end phones, but only have the two cameras like they have before.

00:28:48 ◼   ► And then use, so there would be a wide and a normal or an ultra wide and a wide, I don't even

00:28:58 ◼   ► know how they define them anymore, but imagine that and then they would essentially have a

00:29:02 ◼   ► virtual third camera, sort of like how there's a virtual fourth camera on the pro models now.

00:29:07 ◼   ► I said, oh, by the way, I said last week, I called the 14 max instead of 14 plus.

00:29:17 ◼   ► Remember iPhone math? Anyway, there are two, one of them is bigger than the other.

00:29:21 ◼   ► - Oh my God, iPhone math.

00:29:22 ◼   ► - iPhone math, that was, that was because it was the iPhone plus,

00:29:26 ◼   ► but it was mistranslated as iPhone math. It was amazing. That was back on iPhone six.

00:29:30 ◼   ► - That is one of the great rumors, man.

00:29:32 ◼   ► - iPhone math, that's what it's going to be called. Like not even Apple is dumb enough

00:29:35 ◼   ► to call something iPhone math. Pro max, sure. Math, not so much. So anyway, I do wonder if

00:29:43 ◼   ► they might take that 48 and put it in the lower end phone, but the details of like, how does that,

00:29:52 ◼   ► how does that get used? And is there only one other camera on that unit and how did, you know,

00:29:59 ◼   ► does it look like it's a more, you know, they do the virtual camera thing where it uses all

00:30:02 ◼   ► the pixels or it bins them and all that. I don't know. Interesting idea. Major camera improvements

00:30:08 ◼   ► is very vague, but I think that would be my guess. Like I kind of doubt that they're going to invent

00:30:14 ◼   ► a new camera for the 15, right? More likely that it's a recycled camera from another device.

00:30:22 ◼   ► - Which and as well, like it would make sense to me then maybe why you would want to put the A16

00:30:28 ◼   ► in there, because you've got to imagine that there has to be some kind of like linking between this

00:30:34 ◼   ► higher quality camera sensor and the processor, right? So it can fully like work these two things

00:30:42 ◼   ► in tandem. - And if it's two cameras instead of three, they, you know, it's a little bit

00:30:45 ◼   ► decontented, it's a little bit cheaper, but they're still using the chip and they're still

00:30:50 ◼   ► maybe using that sensor and like, because again, Apple is great at recycling things, right? That's

00:30:58 ◼   ► how Apple is able to do everything that it does. It reuses a lot of the technology that it's got.

00:31:03 ◼   ► So if it's been making that sensor or buying that sensor and integrating it, and it's got the A16

00:31:09 ◼   ► and like it knows how to do all of that stuff and has been doing it for a year and now can roll it

00:31:14 ◼   ► down into another product, because then it's got the high-end stuff going into the Pro instead.

00:31:18 ◼   ► - And especially, you know, it would make sense this year because of the expected changes to the

00:31:25 ◼   ► Pro camera that you could get away with, although it's only been a year, you can put it in the

00:31:31 ◼   ► regular one. Now, this is where I'm going to quote this, on the Pro phones, there will be quote,

00:31:37 ◼   ► "major rear camera upgrades, including updated lenses and the ability to get a much wider range

00:31:43 ◼   ► of optical zoom on the largest model." Now, I don't know why Mark isn't saying periscope lens here,

00:31:50 ◼   ► but like, that's what we expect this to be. But this could be like one of those things where

00:31:57 ◼   ► no one is yet really sure how Apple's doing it, right? But like their own funny way, you know,

00:32:03 ◼   ► of making this work that nobody else has done before, or maybe they're just doing a periscope

00:32:07 ◼   ► lens, but they won't call it that. - It could be a periscope lens or it could be like,

00:32:12 ◼   ► "Oh, we thought it was going to be a periscope lens, but it turns out it's this other esoteric

00:32:16 ◼   ► thing that nobody's really doing, but they decided to do it and they're happy with it,

00:32:19 ◼   ► so they're going to ship that." Like, yeah, there's the hedging here, or he knows some of the back-end

00:32:25 ◼   ► specs of it, but doesn't quite know the details of how they get there. - It's like, "I know that

00:32:30 ◼   ► there's going to be a wider range of optical zoom on the largest model, but I can't tell you how."

00:32:35 ◼   ► Like, we can all presume it, right? We're all presuming it, but if you don't, you know,

00:32:40 ◼   ► like you know the output, but you don't know the process of getting there. - For people who don't

00:32:45 ◼   ► know what we mean by periscope lens, this is how do you get a thin-ish phone to have more optical

00:32:53 ◼   ► characteristics? Because usually you need a longer lens to do more zoom, and how can you have a longer

00:32:59 ◼   ► lens? I mean, they already have the camera bump, and there's like the camera block with the bumps

00:33:04 ◼   ► on top of it, right? Like, you can extend out and you can get some of that, but ultimately you can't

00:33:10 ◼   ► have a phone with a giant lens sticking out of it. So what they do is they have a mirror that turns

00:33:17 ◼   ► the light sideways so that you can run some of the length of that optical path down the length of the

00:33:24 ◼   ► phone inside instead of the thickness of the phone. It's a very clever idea. Some other phones do that

00:33:31 ◼   ► too. - It's almost like magic to me, like how this actually works. Like, I understand it. I've seen

00:33:39 ◼   ► it done a bunch of times. I understand your explanation. I still don't fully know how it works,

00:33:44 ◼   ► you know what I mean? It's like, I believe it works, but I don't know exactly how it works.

00:33:48 ◼   ► Light works in mysterious ways. It's all optics. You see, Snell's law tells us that refraction is,

00:33:54 ◼   ► I'm not going to get into it here, but you can look it up. Snell's law. It's real.

00:33:58 ◼   ► Oh, okay. I thought that... - No, Snell's law is real. It was not mine. I didn't make that law.

00:34:05 ◼   ► Previous Snell made that law for me. But yeah, light does fantastic, weird things, and you can

00:34:11 ◼   ► do stuff like flip it sideways so that you can have your lens and your optics happening inside

00:34:18 ◼   ► the phone body instead of right on the back. Samsung has done that and other phone manufacturers

00:34:23 ◼   ► have done that. It's a logical progression for the iPhone because Apple cares so much about camera

00:34:30 ◼   ► quality. Beyond a certain point, you just can't make the lenses any longer. So this is what you do.

00:34:38 ◼   ► Can't wait to see it, by the way. It's going to be great. And if it's in the Pro Max,

00:34:42 ◼   ► that is going to make that phone that much more interesting. If it's really like a groundbreaking

00:34:49 ◼   ► iPhone camera that's way beyond what Apple has done before, that would be... It might drive a

00:34:54 ◼   ► lot of people into Pro Max Club, is what I'm saying. - I feel like it makes sense to me,

00:34:59 ◼   ► you know, like in the way we were just talking about the technology going down,

00:35:03 ◼   ► that it would just be in the Pro Max to make it the easiest on them because it would be

00:35:07 ◼   ► something new, complicated to make, and they have the space to build it into the phone more easily

00:35:12 ◼   ► because the phone is bigger. And honestly, we've spoken about this before, but this is how I could

00:35:17 ◼   ► imagine what you just said about, "Oh, it's such a big change. This is how they call it the ultra,

00:35:24 ◼   ► right? That they're taking a big step. This is now something we've never done before."

00:35:29 ◼   ► - That could be. - That kind of a name.

00:35:31 ◼   ► - This is the perfect time. I don't know if the rumors... I think it's unclear in its marketing,

00:35:36 ◼   ► so it's really hard to get that sense, but like if there's a periscope camera and it is vastly

00:35:41 ◼   ► beyond the quality of any iPhone camera ever before, I think it does it a disservice to call

00:35:47 ◼   ► it Pro Max, right? At that point, you really do want to call it ultra and say, "This is not just

00:35:53 ◼   ► a big pro. This is a whole huge step forward and you want to differentiate that." It'll probably

00:35:59 ◼   ► raise the price even more, but like go to town, go for it. I think that's great.

00:36:04 ◼   ► - The Pro phones will get a new three nanometer chip.

00:36:07 ◼   ► - Right. A 17. - All the phones will get USB-C.

00:36:14 ◼   ► - By the way, I enjoy Mark Herman struggling like the rest of us in describing the benefit

00:36:20 ◼   ► of having a faster chip. - Snappier.

00:36:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, he literally said they'll be snappier. And it's like, "God, the power of these chips is so

00:36:32 ◼   ► spectacular." And Apple is ahead of the competition. They're ahead of Qualcomm's

00:36:36 ◼   ► chips here too and all that. But I reached the point in the last couple of years where I'm not

00:36:42 ◼   ► sure it matters anymore. I mean, sometimes it will matter in detail if there's some incredibly

00:36:47 ◼   ► complex graphics thing or machine learning thing and all of that. And obviously, the increased

00:36:51 ◼   ► power increases the size of the platform that lets the software not just do things snappier,

00:36:58 ◼   ► but do things they couldn't do before because they would take an unreasonable amount of time.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Or in the case of the three nanometer process, maybe the most important thing is that

00:37:06 ◼   ► it will be more power efficient. And so battery life will be better. Or they'll be able to take

00:37:12 ◼   ► some of that battery out in order to put the periscope camera in. I don't know. But it is

00:37:18 ◼   ► a struggle where he's just trying to say, "Look, there's going to be a new chip using the new

00:37:22 ◼   ► process." But he needs to say, "As a writer, you're always prompted to do this." But why?

00:37:28 ◼   ► Why does that matter? What is the relevance there? And so he's like,

00:37:31 ◼   ► "It'll be snappier." It's like, "Sure, sure it'll be. Yeah, it'll totally be snappier."

00:37:37 ◼   ► People will get this phone and they'll be like, "Whoa, the snappy."

00:37:42 ◼   ► - So snappy. - Uh-huh.

00:37:44 ◼   ► - The Pro phones are going to get titanium on the sides. So we're moving away from stainless steel

00:37:50 ◼   ► to titanium with a slight curve on the back glass. So the back glass will have more of a softer feel

00:37:58 ◼   ► to it. Maybe it's nicer to hold. Maybe it's more slippery to hold. We'll find out.

00:38:04 ◼   ► - We don't know. They said it's going to have the frosted glass look, which is that muted look that

00:38:07 ◼   ► I don't really like on the Pro phones. So it sounds like they're keeping that. Titanium though.

00:38:12 ◼   ► Titanium is nice. My Apple Watch is titanium. It's light. It's very nice. And as we detailed in our

00:38:18 ◼   ► little science corner a few months ago, you can anodize titanium. So you don't have to do what

00:38:24 ◼   ► Apple did back in the day with the titanium power book and paint it and then have the paint flake

00:38:28 ◼   ► off. You actually anodize it and it's fine. And I've had this black titanium Apple Watch for two

00:38:33 ◼   ► years now, and it doesn't have any paint on it, and it doesn't chipped, and it's all still beautiful.

00:38:40 ◼   ► And what I'm saying is a big fan. My question is, just I'm going to put this out there. Maybe this

00:38:45 ◼   ► could be a draft item. You know how Apple talks about the medical grade, surgical grade? Sorry,

00:38:51 ◼   ► not medical, surgical grade stainless steel on the iPhone? What is the titanium? Is it like aerospace

00:38:58 ◼   ► grade titanium or something? Well, the aluminium they say is aircraft grade. Right. Like,

00:39:03 ◼   ► we got a new element. It's going to have an indicator of how, you know, because this is

00:39:11 ◼   ► Apple's marketing race. He's like, I know you all know about the periodic table. I know you look up

00:39:16 ◼   ► there and you see your aluminums and your titanium. Stainless steel, it's an alloy. It's not up there.

00:39:21 ◼   ► But be that as it may, what makes our titanium different? Well, and then they do the thing where

00:39:28 ◼   ► they're like, but it's not titanium. It's magic titanium. It's aerospace grade. It's impurities

00:39:34 ◼   ► have been filtered out, or it's a unique alloy of titanium and molybdenum. And it makes it so that

00:39:41 ◼   ► it reads your mind or whatever it is, you know, they're going to have, because even because Apple

00:39:46 ◼   ► masters of branding, everything's got a brand name. Well, almost everything, but you know,

00:39:52 ◼   ► the important stuff has a brand name. They can't just be satisfied with an element that's on the

00:39:59 ◼   ► periodic table, a common element. They have to explain why it's amazing. So it's just watch

00:40:05 ◼   ► grade. They use Apple watch great. Titanium on the iPhone. It's going to be, I'm going to tell you,

00:40:09 ◼   ► it's like, this is the same titanium that they use in making the international space station

00:40:15 ◼   ► or something. Right. It's going to be that it's going to be titanium from outer space.

00:40:19 ◼   ► I don't know. We'll see, but they'll do something. Mark my words. They'll do something.

00:40:23 ◼   ► If you employ a team of metal, which Apple have, they have their own metal.

00:40:27 ◼   ► They do. Right. And like, they made their own gold for the Apple watch. Right.

00:40:32 ◼   ► Oh yeah. Right. See again, Hey, you look at the, you look at that periodic table and you see a you

00:40:36 ◼   ► and you're like gold. Okay. Whatever. It's like, no, we made great gold. We made the best gold.

00:40:44 ◼   ► And now best titanium coming to you. Now, do you remember some time ago, we were talking about the

00:40:52 ◼   ► buttons on the iPhone that they were maybe going to be going to solid state and be like the track

00:40:58 ◼   ► pad or whatever, right? Where they don't actually physically move that got canned. Right. But the,

00:41:04 ◼   ► there is something that has remained, which is the mute slash ring switcher, like the little

00:41:10 ◼   ► switch that you've got on the phone is going to become a button and it will be action button,

00:41:16 ◼   ► like maybe even called the action button. And this is a quote from Mark Gurman, Steve Moser at Mac

00:41:22 ◼   ► rumors discovered code in iOS 17 that hints at the possible options for this button. It suggests

00:41:28 ◼   ► you'll be able to choose among several possibilities. The standard mute switch mechanism,

00:41:32 ◼   ► a focus mode, like do not disturb launching the camera, turning on the flashlight or opening

00:41:37 ◼   ► features for accessibility or translating text. That sounds just like the action button on the

00:41:41 ◼   ► Apple watch ultra, right? Of like the kinds of things you can do with it. Programmable button.

00:41:45 ◼   ► And I'm here for it, right? Like that's, that's cool. There was all that debate about like,

00:41:50 ◼   ► Oh, ring switching people who are the magic ring switch people who can tell in the pocket, whether

00:41:54 ◼   ► it's switched one way or the other, which I can never remember. I spent Mike last week, I was

00:42:00 ◼   ► trying to see if my iPhone was muted and I spent a long time steering a control center, wondering

00:42:07 ◼   ► why there wasn't a mute item in control. So they're going to have to add it. Right. Right. Well,

00:42:11 ◼   ► so, so I had that moment because this is how much I use my iPhone versus my iPad. And I just

00:42:15 ◼   ► stared at it and I'm like, why isn't it there? Why isn't the little bell there? And then I,

00:42:18 ◼   ► I had an, after a minute I was like, Oh, iPhone, there's a switch on the side. And then I did the

00:42:23 ◼   ► switch and then, and then what ridiculous fishing or something started to make noise. And I was

00:42:27 ◼   ► like, Oh, cause I hate that. I hate how some things honor that the honor, the switch and don't play

00:42:33 ◼   ► anything unless you turn the switch off versus just honoring the volume setting bugs me. It's

00:42:37 ◼   ► inconsistent between apps. Anyway. Um, I had that moment and I thought, well, it won't be like this

00:42:42 ◼   ► soon, right? Pretty soon. That'll just be a button. And, uh, you can choose to have that button

00:42:47 ◼   ► toggle mute on and off or have it be something else and just put it in control center. Cause

00:42:52 ◼   ► as somebody who leaves the mute on all the time, I would really rather just have it on all the time

00:42:57 ◼   ► in control center and use that button for something else. Yeah. I mean, that would be the same for me,

00:43:02 ◼   ► right? Where like, actually if they did put it into software, then I'd be fine with it. Cause I

00:43:06 ◼   ► could just leave it in software and I know it's off all the time. I do like the ring switches

00:43:11 ◼   ► because it's easy for me to know it's always off. But if it's in software is realistically as simple

00:43:15 ◼   ► as that. As long as they leave it always off. Right. I mean, my, my, my Apple watch is always

00:43:19 ◼   ► off too. And I don't need a right. Like I don't need to switch for it. I just said, cause I don't

00:43:24 ◼   ► want the volume controls to be met to be doing this. Like I don't want that. Like I don't want

00:43:30 ◼   ► that. Right. Right. But if there's just a straight up mute, which there would be cause it's on the

00:43:34 ◼   ► iPad, that's what it is. So for people who are like, if you really flip between, um,

00:43:41 ◼   ► noise and not noise all the time, then you would apply this button. And yes, I know you wouldn't

00:43:47 ◼   ► know the state, but like, I think it's better more broadly to have it be programmable. All I ask,

00:43:52 ◼   ► let me run a shortcut. I know you can do this in the Apple watch too. So like, just let me run a

00:43:57 ◼   ► shortcut from that and then I'll be happy. You know, that'd be awesome. Sounds, sounds great to

00:44:01 ◼   ► me. You mentioned it earlier, but price creases, uh, increases price creases. They're folding the

00:44:07 ◼   ► money. Uh, price increases are expected in some markets, maybe the U S as well. Uh, this is kind

00:44:13 ◼   ► of expected mainly in the pro phones, but could be across the whole thing. Right. And if there's an

00:44:18 ◼   ► ultra, right. Like that's a really great moment to increase the price of that phone even more.

00:44:25 ◼   ► There is for the Apple watch and U S nine processor in the Apple watches, which would

00:44:32 ◼   ► include the first significant processor bumps since the S six in 2020. So there's been processes

00:44:38 ◼   ► every year, but they've been, you know, different configurations of the system on the chip as to

00:44:44 ◼   ► what it can do. But in that time period, that hasn't really been any kind of speed bump to

00:44:49 ◼   ► the Apple watch. The S nine would do that apparently. Yeah. I mean, that's great. It's good.

00:44:56 ◼   ► I feel okay about my Apple watch, but I'm sure it could be, you know, I'm sure at a certain point,

00:45:03 ◼   ► it won't be right. Right. We will reach that, like, uh, I guess it's snappier kind of moment

00:45:08 ◼   ► with the Apple watch, but right now, like a faster Apple watch, especially since it hasn't really

00:45:11 ◼   ► gotten a major bump in a while. I think that's good. Cause there's more that could be done on

00:45:16 ◼   ► the Apple watch if it had more capabilities, right? Like that we're still at that point where it's,

00:45:20 ◼   ► it's very limited cause it's in such a small space. And so there's more work to be done on

00:45:24 ◼   ► the Apple watch front and a dark titanium option for the Apple watch. Awesome. Possibly. Right.

00:45:29 ◼   ► He said, basically like he had heard about it earlier and it seems to still be in as a

00:45:35 ◼   ► possibility, but he doesn't really know, but it would be weird to me to, to rev the, the,

00:45:40 ◼   ► the model, uh, in a year and not offer like something like that. Cause really, I mean,

00:45:45 ◼   ► I will be surprised as to what they would offer at all. Right. Like what is the reason to do an Apple

00:45:51 ◼   ► watch ultra two a year after? Like what will, you know, like what are they going to tell you is in

00:45:56 ◼   ► this one and like, and I feel like an S nine chip, like that's not really it, you know, it's like,

00:46:02 ◼   ► what is the point of revving it, but being able to say such a success, you know, like we're

00:46:06 ◼   ► doubling down and it also now comes in black or whatever. It's like, Oh, okay. But what I really

00:46:11 ◼   ► want and what I hope they do is it actually comes in all of the colors. The phones come in. That's

00:46:17 ◼   ► what I want. Oh, that's a nice idea. Right. Because they're going to, it's you re presume

00:46:23 ◼   ► because we know because, well, boy, do we know that there's, you can add a titanium, right?

00:46:28 ◼   ► That they'll probably have multiple options for the phones, you know, like four or five options

00:46:35 ◼   ► for the phones. My hope would be that they would then offer this like a selection of those colors

00:46:40 ◼   ► for the Apple watch ultra too. Sure. That'd be neat because I would like choices. I would like

00:46:46 ◼   ► a gold one because that's who I am. Gold finger. Well, or wrist. This episode is brought to you

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00:49:28 ◼   ► - So it is the summer of fun. - Summer of fun!

00:49:34 ◼   ► - Which for you does mean the summer of writing. - True.

00:49:39 ◼   ► - Because you're writing all your reviews. And as we move into review season, I would like to get a

00:49:43 ◼   ► lay of the land for your writing setup right now. I'm going to talk about apps, but I also want to

00:49:50 ◼   ► start this with like with two questions. One is which device do you currently do the bulk of your

00:49:57 ◼   ► writing on, especially when it comes to reviews? - So I've been doing the bulk of my writing

00:50:02 ◼   ► this summer on my Mac using the keyboard that you made for me.

00:50:08 ◼   ► - Ah, great. - Which is the what? Keychron Q1?

00:50:12 ◼   ► - Yes. I'm going to say yes to that. - I think so.

00:50:16 ◼   ► - Yeah. - With the Kiwi switches and

00:50:20 ◼   ► I got the severance keys. - Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:50:25 ◼   ► - It's like a little blue keyboard. Summer, my beloved memories of summer for the last 20 years

00:50:34 ◼   ► really are writing under the redwood tree in my backyard, sitting in a camp chair basically.

00:50:42 ◼   ► And so what I'd really like to say is that I've been doing a lot of writing on the Magic keyboard

00:50:49 ◼   ► on my iPad sitting out in the backyard, but it's been here in the Bay Area, it's been a cold summer.

00:50:58 ◼   ► - Oh, okay. - And I've written out there like one day.

00:51:02 ◼   ► So I'm not worried. August and September and October are usually our hottest months,

00:51:10 ◼   ► and so probably I will be hot and miserable and outside writing at some point here,

00:51:16 ◼   ► and that will make me happy because I'll be in the shade of the redwood tree and it'll be great.

00:51:19 ◼   ► But for now I'm doing most of my work actually at my Mac and not anywhere else, so it's unusual for me.

00:51:24 ◼   ► - But your ideal for writing this kind of stuff, like your Mac OS review or something,

00:51:30 ◼   ► would be on your iPad instead? - Yeah, in the backyard, yeah, for sure.

00:51:35 ◼   ► And in the winter I usually do a lot of writing at, I do writing at my desk, but I also do a lot

00:51:42 ◼   ► of writing at the bar, in my kitchen. - In the kitchen, right? It's just like Jason goes down to the local

00:51:49 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, I used to go to Starbucks and write my Mac world column there and all that,

00:51:55 ◼   ► and I don't really do that anymore ever since the pandemic. But I have a little stand for my iPad

00:52:03 ◼   ► that goes in and then I use a Bluetooth keyboard and a Magic trackpad and I will sit there on a bar

00:52:11 ◼   ► stool or stand next to the bar, depending on how I'm feeling. And that's really great because it's

00:52:17 ◼   ► a shift, it's a mental shift where I'm somewhere else doing something else and I'm sort of like,

00:52:22 ◼   ► it sends a signal to my brain like, "The only reason you're here is writing, stop wasting time,

00:52:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah. - "Get the words out now." But I just wrote a 2000 word piece last week that is forthcoming,

00:52:34 ◼   ► it's a freelance piece, and I wrote that sitting here at my desk. And when I do

00:52:41 ◼   ► that, to get that signal to my brain that I need to switch gears, a lot of times what I'll do is

00:52:46 ◼   ► I actually put my headphones in, plug directly into the headphone jack on the, well, there's an

00:52:52 ◼   ► extension cord, but it's a headphone jack on my computer and I play music and I just, there's

00:52:58 ◼   ► something about writing where I've got the headphones in and I can't hear anything else and

00:53:01 ◼   ► I'm just focused. I've got the music playing and I'm writing. I'm usually listening to music on my

00:53:07 ◼   ► AirPods when I'm at the bar top in my kitchen or if I'm outside in the backyard too, it's a

00:53:14 ◼   ► cue for me to focus on that. Whereas when I'm just sort of doing other stuff, I usually just have the

00:53:19 ◼   ► music on speakers and stuff in my office. So it's a different, I'm trying to give my brain cues of

00:53:25 ◼   ► like, again, now is the time that you did all of these other things because it's time to write now.

00:53:32 ◼   ► So if you don't write now, why did you do all those other things? And that is a way of getting

00:53:38 ◼   ► my brain to like engage and be like, yeah, okay, now the words are going to come out.

00:53:42 ◼   ► Music with or without lyrics?

00:53:45 ◼   ► Ah, it's a classic. I think we've dealt with this in Snell Talk before. I love writing to music that

00:53:53 ◼   ► I know by heart, which means it needs to be, there's a very specific category this is, which is

00:53:59 ◼   ► it's music that I know incredibly well. It is pop and rock music with lyrics, but it's the stuff

00:54:06 ◼   ► that I know by heart. So my brain is not tracking the lyrics and it's not in, it's not like riding

00:54:15 ◼   ► along with the song and enjoying the ride. And there's a little corollary here. So, so I don't

00:54:20 ◼   ► need to listen to instrumental. Sometimes I do listen to instrumental stuff or electronic stuff

00:54:24 ◼   ► or like stuff that doesn't have words, but a lot of times the playlists that I use the most are ones

00:54:30 ◼   ► that are just rock playlists. But here's a funny thing. If I don't use it for a while, I can't write

00:54:37 ◼   ► to it. So it has to be like, if it's novel, like I was playing the other day, I was playing a

00:54:44 ◼   ► playlist by a band I like, but I hadn't listened to it in a while. And I realized I couldn't use

00:54:51 ◼   ► it to write because it's been so long since I listened to those songs that every time a song

00:54:56 ◼   ► would come on and I'd be like, Oh, this song. And that is not what you want when you're writing.

00:55:00 ◼   ► You don't want to be enjoying the songs. You want the songs as a pleasant kind of like

00:55:05 ◼   ► driver of, you know, I'm listening to these, the songs are playing and I'm listening to them while

00:55:11 ◼   ► I'm also focused. And I could do that. So every year, it used to be on Last.fm, because I was

00:55:20 ◼   ► Scroblin' back in the day. I was Big Scrobblin' back in the day. And now it's just the Apple Music

00:55:28 ◼   ► charts at the end of the year that they do. But there are certain artists that crop up there that

00:55:35 ◼   ► it's like, why are you listening to this artist? And the answer is, Oh, yeah, that's one of my

00:55:40 ◼   ► playlists for when I'm writing. So it's like, why did you listen to Underneath Days by Bob

00:55:46 ◼   ► Mold 800 times last year? That's a song from 10 years ago. And the answer is, it's because the

00:55:52 ◼   ► Bob Mold playlist is one of my writing playlists. And so that song comes up all the time and it

00:55:56 ◼   ► gives me energy and I love it. And also I do it long enough that, you know, I've been using it

00:56:01 ◼   ► long enough that I'm not really focused on it. It doesn't distract me from my writing.

00:56:07 ◼   ► So obviously I'm assuming that nothing has changed with the app on your Mac and you're still using

00:56:12 ◼   ► BB Edit. Still writing in BB Edit, yeah. What about iOS? So my workflow there hasn't changed

00:56:19 ◼   ► very much. Although I think that if I spent more time on iOS, like later this summer, I will

00:56:26 ◼   ► probably, I'm always looking around because my workflow right now is still Dropbox based.

00:56:32 ◼   ► Essentially it's plain text in Dropbox. It's marked down in Dropbox. So I have a folder called

00:56:36 ◼   ► Stories and I can have them in BB Edit on my Mac and I can have them in whatever text editor app

00:56:42 ◼   ► I'm using on my iPad. I have been using OneWriter as my primary for a long time on the iPad and I

00:56:50 ◼   ► still use it as my primary. It gets out of my way. It does what I want. I've even got it, you know,

00:56:55 ◼   ► I've got some scripts hooked up to it and shortcuts so that I can post things directly to

00:56:59 ◼   ► six colors from there. I'm always open to other things. I wrote an article about this a long time

00:57:06 ◼   ► ago and I know we've talked about it. I want a markdown text editor that ideally has shortcuts

00:57:13 ◼   ► for things like hyperlinks and stuff like that, but also I want to see all the code. There are a

00:57:19 ◼   ► bunch of markdown editors that do things like you make a hyperlink and it hides the link. I hate

00:57:24 ◼   ► that. I know why people like that. I hate it because what the link is matters to me. I'm like,

00:57:30 ◼   ► "Which link is that on that part?" I'm like, "Oh, I have to go in. I have to use the cursor in

00:57:36 ◼   ► because if I click on it, it opens it and I use the cursor and I can expand it and all that." I hate

00:57:39 ◼   ► it. I just don't want that. I want to be able to see the code at all times. And then automation is

00:57:47 ◼   ► nice for things like automatically posting it to the site. The thing I don't like about OneWriter

00:57:53 ◼   ► is that it's JavaScript-based and what I really would like is something like Python where I could

00:57:57 ◼   ► build macros that are in a language that I understand better than JavaScript. Unfortunately,

00:58:04 ◼   ► that was editorial, right, which basically got abandoned before I learned Python. Now I

00:58:09 ◼   ► learn Python. I'm like, "Oh, editorial would have been the answer there." But the truth is a lot of

00:58:14 ◼   ► this stuff, if it's got hooks out to shortcuts, it doesn't matter because the shortcuts can do

00:58:17 ◼   ► the automations for me. And the truth is I'm more... There's an app called Tio that I've used

00:58:23 ◼   ► a bit that is very clever. It's got its own automation system that's like shortcuts except

00:58:27 ◼   ► inside Tio. Also interesting. And I'm open to others, but right now that works the best because

00:58:38 ◼   ► there's no BBEdit for iOS, right? I need something that will round trip with Dropbox. And there are

00:58:46 ◼   ► some apps that are like, "It's great. We have our own little iCloud folder and I don't want that."

00:58:52 ◼   ► And it's extremely unlikely that some iOS app is going to do a Mac version and make me drop BBEdit.

00:58:57 ◼   ► That just seems very unlikely. So I end up really needing it to just be a very nice markdown text

00:59:03 ◼   ► editor that can look in a Dropbox folder or in the long run, maybe an iCloud Drive folder. Although

00:59:09 ◼   ► my experience is that the iCloud Drive updating is still more problematic than the

00:59:18 ◼   ► Dropbox updating. But what I want to be able to do is write my Mac world column, close my iPad,

00:59:26 ◼   ► walk into my office, open the column in BBEdit, do a couple of things to it, and then put it in

00:59:31 ◼   ► their system. And when I've tried that with iCloud Drive, I will sometimes come in and I'll look at

00:59:37 ◼   ► the file and it just hasn't updated. And then eventually it updates and that's unacceptable.

00:59:42 ◼   ► Dropbox is getting more and more like that these days for me at least.

00:59:48 ◼   ► Hasn't happened to me. I've still got it that it's straight up that those things are happening

00:59:54 ◼   ► and they're working really well. Have you upgraded to the version that is using the file provider

00:59:58 ◼   ► API? I've been using the file provider API for a long time now, since it was the first beta of it.

01:00:04 ◼   ► I mean, I think my problem tends to be that I'm dealing with larger files than a text file,

01:00:08 ◼   ► right? Could be. I'm finding issues with audio files quite a lot where I'm trying to download

01:00:14 ◼   ► something and it's just stuck. Yes, well, it's a lot easier when it's just a little tiny text file.

01:00:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I've found recently sometimes it's quicker for me to go to the web and download the thing

01:00:27 ◼   ► that I want, which is just very annoying. That's unacceptable. That's unacceptable for any of these

01:00:31 ◼   ► services to do it that way. Are there any apps or tools that you tried recently that you've rejected?

01:00:39 ◼   ► I think you tried Obsidian, right? I did try Obsidian. Obsidian is overkill for me.

01:00:49 ◼   ► Outliners and note-taking apps. Anything that you build up like a little packet of information

01:01:01 ◼   ► and it's all cross-linked and stuff. It's just not how I write. Yeah, I was going to ask where

01:01:08 ◼   ► do your notes and stuff, like if you're writing a story and you have some notes, where do they go?

01:01:11 ◼   ► You know that one of the things about me is I try to be very skeptical of adding overhead to what I

01:01:21 ◼   ► do because it's overhead. It's more work and my question is always going to be if I do this extra

01:01:32 ◼   ► work, does it save me time or benefit me in some other way? Every time I've tried something like

01:01:43 ◼   ► Obsidian or you know and there are other kind of note-taking apps or use Drafts and Bear and

01:01:50 ◼   ► all sorts of other things, what I end up feeling is like I just don't work in a way where I need

01:01:58 ◼   ► to have all of my stuff in different places all interlinked and I'm going to use that as the

01:02:03 ◼   ► basis. I just don't do that. Honestly, I do some stuff like if I'm doing an Apple briefing or

01:02:10 ◼   ► something like that, I take notes about that in notes, Apple Notes, and I look back on it later.

01:02:18 ◼   ► But when I'm writing, I'm writing in a text file and my notes are at the bottom.

01:02:26 ◼   ► And usually what I will do is I will outline my story if it's a lengthy story like a review

01:02:31 ◼   ► and the way I'll outline my story is I will put what the sections are in the text file

01:02:37 ◼   ► and then I'll take my notes about those sections and put them in the sections.

01:02:45 ◼   ► And then I will usually write, it doesn't always happen if I'm really getting stuck or if there's

01:02:50 ◼   ► something that I'm not ready to deal with yet, I'll change it. But usually I will write top to

01:02:55 ◼   ► bottom. I will literally, I'll write an intro and I will then go to the next section and I will look

01:03:02 ◼   ► at the notes that are in there and I will write the next section. And as I write, I gobble up the

01:03:07 ◼   ► little notes. They just go away. Like Pac-Man. I'm like, and the notes go away because the

01:03:14 ◼   ► paragraphs are there now. I don't need the notes anymore. And if there's a lot of stuff in the

01:03:19 ◼   ► notes that's like I might want to refer to, I'll also have the notes saved as a different text file

01:03:23 ◼   ► that I can go get if I need to. But for the most part, that's how I do it. And so I'll sit down

01:03:28 ◼   ► and I'll write a story about next version of macOS, maybe the beta, or maybe it'll be my final review

01:03:34 ◼   ► and I'll put down the structure and I'll put down what I'm thinking and then I will kind of work

01:03:39 ◼   ► from there. So I just don't, I honestly just don't understand how somebody like our friend Federico

01:03:47 ◼   ► works. I don't, I just don't understand it. And I'm in awe of it, honestly, but I don't understand

01:03:57 ◼   ► it where he does so much pre-work where he's taking notes and using stuff and building up

01:04:07 ◼   ► like a big note library. And maybe this is just that I, I mean, I just, I was bad at this in

01:04:16 ◼   ► college even. I didn't, I wasn't good at taking notes in college. I would take some, but not a lot

01:04:21 ◼   ► of them. And it's still like this today that I'm using the beta and I'm experiencing it. And then

01:04:29 ◼   ► I get to the end and I'm, I make a little outline in my text file and say, here are the things I

01:04:34 ◼   ► want to talk about that I noticed this year. And that's it. I don't, I'm not like extracting

01:04:40 ◼   ► notes that I took back in June when I used a particular feature and then bringing them in.

01:04:45 ◼   ► I just am not. And part of that is that I'm also not writing a 25,000 word review, right? I'm

01:04:51 ◼   ► only going to write 5,000. Yeah, but it probably is right. That I, I want it at a very particular

01:04:58 ◼   ► level and I don't want to go on for 10 or 15 or 20,000 words. I just don't want to do that. That's

01:05:05 ◼   ► not my goal. But anyway, I, my exception to this is back like a decade ago now. I wrote a little

01:05:16 ◼   ► more than a decade ago. I did National Novel Writing Month and I ended up writing a few

01:05:22 ◼   ► novels and I used Scrivener for those. And that's a case where there's so much you have to keep

01:05:30 ◼   ► track of as you're writing a novel in terms of your plan and who your characters are and what

01:05:36 ◼   ► has happened that using Scrivener with its organizational features was very helpful to

01:05:44 ◼   ► that process. That was a, that was a process that was so huge that I had to, but I've tried to use

01:05:50 ◼   ► Scrivener for my big OS reviews and stuff. And honestly, it was, it felt kind of unnecessary.

01:05:57 ◼   ► It was overkill for that part of it. So, I mean, there is a place like Dan Morin with his multi-book

01:06:04 ◼   ► sci-fi novel series, like he had, he built a Wiki, which I think is now in Obsidian.

01:06:09 ◼   ► Because that's what it is. That's what these things are now, right? They're just Wikis,

01:06:13 ◼   ► really. They're basically Wikis. And he needs that because he doesn't remember this fact about

01:06:19 ◼   ► his universe that he wrote, you know, as an aside in book two, but like he needs to remain consistent

01:06:25 ◼   ► in book five about what he said in book two. And so being able to look that up, being able to search

01:06:30 ◼   ► it is very helpful to him. So there are lots of ways that, and again, like I said, I'm kind of

01:06:37 ◼   ► in awe of Federico and how he does it. And it works for him and everybody's brains work differently.

01:06:42 ◼   ► And so anyway, that's where I am right now. - It's similar to Grey too, like the way that he

01:06:48 ◼   ► writes his scripts. Like I've seen some of the, like his Obsidian vault and it's like, he's

01:06:53 ◼   ► referring to pieces of information he's collected so he can make sure that like he's factually

01:07:00 ◼   ► accurate, you know, like so hundreds and hundreds of notes full of pieces of information go into

01:07:05 ◼   ► creating this one script that goes into a video. - I get it. And the sense that I have is that

01:07:12 ◼   ► the stuff I write is not the stuff that is, you know, I spent months deeply researching a topic

01:07:21 ◼   ► and I have all of these details. And if I did that, I would have to do that, right? I would

01:07:25 ◼   ► absolutely have to do that. But most of the stuff I write, if not all of the stuff I write is not

01:07:31 ◼   ► that and can be contained in notes and a text file and in my brain. And if I was trying something

01:07:40 ◼   ► like that, it would be different. That said, I think also I gravitate toward doing the level that

01:07:45 ◼   ► I'm on because it is how I prefer to work. I think that is part of it, is it's self-selecting.

01:07:52 ◼   ► I've always been the kind of person who thinks about doing months of research and thinking,

01:08:02 ◼   ► yeah, I'm not going to do that. It's just like, I don't want to do that. I would be the kind of

01:08:07 ◼   ► person who like, like taking them back to college, it's like, oh, we're studying and I'm going to go

01:08:13 ◼   ► and study for five hours. We're going to study for this test. And I would like look over my notes and

01:08:18 ◼   ► after like half an hour, I'd be like, I don't even know what I'm doing here. And I'd be done.

01:08:22 ◼   ► Cause it's just not, I just couldn't do it. I just, it's just not, I did it. I took the notes.

01:08:28 ◼   ► I listened. I wrote the papers. I reviewed the material and I'm done. Whereas other people I

01:08:33 ◼   ► knew would be like, oh, study session. I did eight hours of studying for the final. And I've

01:08:39 ◼   ► never understood that. It's just not how my brain works. So I think that an aspect of that is the

01:08:44 ◼   ► self-selecting. Could I do what Gray does in terms of that level of research and that level of

01:08:51 ◼   ► not making your content, but just spending time investigating all of the back story and all of the

01:09:00 ◼   ► references so that after a long time, you would get to the point that you would make your thing.

01:09:06 ◼   ► I don't think I'm built that way. I don't think I could work that way. I mean, I could, I could do

01:09:10 ◼   ► it, but it would be very painful for me to do it because my brain doesn't work like that.

01:09:13 ◼   ► If you enjoy this show and would like more of this show, you should subscribe to upgrade plus

01:09:21 ◼   ► you'll hear no ads. You'll get bonus content every single week. You get access to the relay

01:09:26 ◼   ► FM members, discord, and so many more benefits. You can go to get upgrade plus.com. It's just

01:09:31 ◼   ► $5 a month or $50 a year. I feel like the conversation we just had, like talking about

01:09:36 ◼   ► Jason's writing process and stuff like that, that is it like in vibe similar to what upgrade plus

01:09:43 ◼   ► tends to be. And so if you would like that kind of conversation, I am convinced that you will enjoy

01:09:48 ◼   ► upgrade plus. So go to get upgrade plus.com. It's just $5 a month or $50 a year. We're very thankful

01:09:54 ◼   ► for the support that our members provide us. Like, you know, people that pay attention, you might

01:09:57 ◼   ► notice we have one ad today. We have one ad today because it's the middle of summer and it's the

01:10:02 ◼   ► last day of the month. It's just like a terrible time, right? This episode publishes on the 31st

01:10:06 ◼   ► of July. And so that tends to be if we're ever going to have, uh, days where, you know, episodes

01:10:12 ◼   ► where we have fewer ads it's then, but me and Jason don't freak out about that anymore because

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01:10:42 ◼   ► good content in there. Go to get upgrade plus.com and you can sign up today. Thank you so much if

01:10:47 ◼   ► you do. All right, let's finish out today's show with some ask upgrade questions.

01:10:55 ◼   ► First one comes from Ryan who says, have you played any of the games that are currently

01:11:01 ◼   ► featured in the Playdate catalog? Oh, I have, but I'm not even sure I remember what they are. I have

01:11:08 ◼   ► played some. My Playdate update is the same as it was the last time we did this, which is

01:11:12 ◼   ► I love it. Every time I play it, I have a great joy. I am a person who, who has a great difficulty

01:11:18 ◼   ► finding time to just sit down and play a game on the Playdate, especially since because of

01:11:25 ◼   ► lighting conditions, you really need to be in a well-lit place. And so, yeah, so I, I,

01:11:30 ◼   ► I still play Hypermeteor all the time. That's, that's the one I keep coming back to is just the

01:11:37 ◼   ► little Asteroids game. I love it so much, but I have downloaded some of the stuff in the catalog.

01:11:41 ◼   ► I can't remember it. I played it a little bit, but mostly for me, I'm still like just hypermeteor

01:11:49 ◼   ► is the best. I love it. So that's what I play most of the time, but I did, but I bring it with me.

01:11:53 ◼   ► I live in Hope, Mike. That's the funny thing about me in the, in the Playdate is every time I go on a

01:11:57 ◼   ► trip, I charge the Playdate and I bring it with me and I think, oh, maybe I'll play it on the plane

01:12:00 ◼   ► or I'll play it. We go go to the lake in Wisconsin. Maybe I'll play it there. You know, go to the

01:12:04 ◼   ► mountains in Colorado. Maybe I'll play it there. And I usually don't, but I, I live in Hope because

01:12:09 ◼   ► I do love the little thing and I enjoy playing the games on it, but the games and me and finding the

01:12:15 ◼   ► time to play games. Like I've been meaning to play PlayStation Spider-Man for ages and I still

01:12:19 ◼   ► haven't played it because Spider-Man 2 is coming soon. I know, I know. And it's just, it's very,

01:12:25 ◼   ► I don't, I got a lot going on. And what I found is that I just don't prioritize every time I'm playing

01:12:31 ◼   ► a game. I think, why am I not doing something? I bet so many other things I could be doing and

01:12:34 ◼   ► it's very difficult. So what about you? You have, uh, any, any new Playdate catalog games now you can

01:12:39 ◼   ► buy? Cause now you can buy games and download them straight to the Playdate. That's what the

01:12:43 ◼   ► catalog is. I think the thing that I wanted to mention here is my favorite Playdate game is a

01:12:48 ◼   ► game called Bloom. I spoke about this when the Playdate came out and they were having the ability

01:12:54 ◼   ► for you to buy games on itch.io and Bloom was one of those games. And it is essentially like a kind

01:13:00 ◼   ► of a, it's a very story driven game where you are managing a flower shop and interacting with people,

01:13:06 ◼   ► but it's much more about the story that you're living through with the text messages that you're

01:13:13 ◼   ► seeing. There is a day/night cycle. It's really a very fascinating, very interestingly built game

01:13:19 ◼   ► that kind of keeps you hooked. And it's one of these games that I feel like it just gives you

01:13:23 ◼   ► a little bit every day. Like it is in real time, like day by day, like you have to play, you know,

01:13:29 ◼   ► multiple days to get the full story. It is now in the Playdate catalog and it has more content.

01:13:35 ◼   ► I have yet to play the additional content cause there's like a, it's possible to do, but I have

01:13:40 ◼   ► to do kind of like a save transfer thing by plugging in my Playdate to my computer and like,

01:13:44 ◼   ► you can move the files over from one to the other in, you know, whatever, it doesn't matter. But I

01:13:50 ◼   ► really, really recommend Bloom. Like it's actually, you know, I've, I've had multiple people say to me,

01:13:54 ◼   ► I just got a Playdate, what games do you like? As in like, and I think they're meaning like,

01:13:58 ◼   ► which from the catalog, but I say go get Bloom. It's so much worth the money. It was one of my

01:14:03 ◼   ► favorite games in the year that I played it. I just absolutely adored it. It was such a beautiful

01:14:08 ◼   ► experience. And I'm also currently playing a few different games and I'll play eight games. So I

01:14:14 ◼   ► just started playing a game called Dave the Diver, which is just so good. It is a combination between

01:14:21 ◼   ► a, like you have to go fishing, but like you're diving fishing to catch fish. And that's one part

01:14:30 ◼   ► of the game. The other part of the game is a sushi restaurant management sim. It is such a weird game.

01:14:37 ◼   ► It's like half fishing game, half restaurant management game. And it's really funny and it's

01:14:42 ◼   ► weird. And there's lots of mini games and there's intrigue. It like, it, what it reminds me of the

01:14:48 ◼   ► most is something like a Stardew Valley. Like if you enjoy Stardew Valley, you are going to love

01:14:55 ◼   ► Dave the Diver. It has that same idea of like, just one more day, just one more day kind of vibe

01:15:01 ◼   ► to it. So if you like those kinds of games, you should check out Dave the Diver. I think Dave

01:15:07 ◼   ► the Diver, this is not like a very original thought, but I believe it too. It's going to be a,

01:15:12 ◼   ► it's going to be a, like a kind of a dark horse on game of the year lists. It's not going to win

01:15:19 ◼   ► them, but it's going to appear. And which is interesting for a game of its type, especially

01:15:24 ◼   ► in a game like this, where if you are a gamer, this is 2023 is potentially going to be the

01:15:31 ◼   ► greatest game in video, greatest year in video game history for just like the pure quality of

01:15:36 ◼   ► the video games that have been released from like Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Diablo. We've got

01:15:42 ◼   ► Starfield coming this year, Spider-Man coming this year and many, many, many, the list goes

01:15:47 ◼   ► literally on and on for high quality games this year. Armored Core, Lies of P, like so much stuff.

01:15:53 ◼   ► Generally there's a game, Jason, I think you'll get a kick out of this. It's called Lies of P

01:15:58 ◼   ► is the name of the game, like the letter P. And it is a very brutal, are you familiar with Dark Souls

01:16:04 ◼   ► or Bloodborne? Have you ever heard of these games before? Yeah. Or Elden Ring, right? Right. These

01:16:10 ◼   ► are games where they're incredibly hard and the combat is really hard. And like, and it's, it's,

01:16:16 ◼   ► it's kind of created a genre of game called Souls-like. So it's like dark and dingy and very

01:16:23 ◼   ► tough combat. Lies of P is based on Pinocchio in this style. It is one of the weirdest, like

01:16:30 ◼   ► mashups of, of things that I've come up with that I've ever come across, but yeah, it's the Pinocchio

01:16:36 ◼   ► intellectual property because I believe it's in the public domain now. And, uh, they've made a,

01:16:41 ◼   ► it's a very, very tough game called Lies of P coming out and it's based on Pinocchio. There's

01:16:46 ◼   ► a Jiminy Cricket in there and everything. Very strange, but people seem excited about it. It's

01:16:51 ◼   ► not a game for me, but people seem excited about it. Mustafa says, seeing the secrecy requirements

01:16:57 ◼   ► by Apple for vision pro developers, like we spoke about last time, right? We would like,

01:17:01 ◼   ► because the developer kits came out and there was all of the texts that I read out about kind of

01:17:06 ◼   ► like what you're supposed to do with your developer kit. Mustafa asks, what is it that prevents a

01:17:11 ◼   ► developer from revealing details to the press under the condition of anonymity? How could Apple

01:17:16 ◼   ► find out if their identity, if it's hidden by the press outlets? Well, this is, this is the question

01:17:22 ◼   ► with any secret, like how does Apple, um, do this for when people leak inside Apple, right? It's the

01:17:29 ◼   ► same, it's the same question. So I think the answer is if Apple wants to try to find who they are,

01:17:36 ◼   ► Apple could do stuff like reveal different things to different people and see if the things get out,

01:17:43 ◼   ► if they really want to do that. I think the truth is that what will happen here is Apple is trying

01:17:48 ◼   ► to make developers not do that by saying, please don't do that. Well, way more than please don't

01:17:56 ◼   ► do that. Right? They're like, they make you sign a bunch of documents to say you want to do it.

01:18:02 ◼   ► Yeah. But in the end, what they're, what they're saying is don't do it. And they're sending that

01:18:06 ◼   ► message. Will somebody do it? Yeah. Almost certainly somebody will do it. Will they get

01:18:10 ◼   ► caught? Probably not. Will it be revealed by the press? Yes. Like all those things will,

01:18:16 ◼   ► will probably happen. But what they want to do is provide enough fear, uh, for people who might be

01:18:22 ◼   ► tempted so that they're like, Oh no, I give, I get in real trouble with Apple if I did this.

01:18:26 ◼   ► And if Apple finds out, then you're persona non grata at Apple, and that's going to be very bad

01:18:32 ◼   ► for you and your career as a developer. So lots of reasons not to, but people do still leak. Like,

01:18:37 ◼   ► why do people leak things? Why do people do that? We've talked about that here a bunch. There's a

01:18:43 ◼   ► lot of like reasons of like, I know a secret, but it's not good unless I can let it out or seeing it

01:18:49 ◼   ► in the press and getting an ego boost because you know, that was you. Um, lots of reasons why that

01:18:55 ◼   ► happens, but you're taking a real risk and all Apple can really do is make it clear that, um,

01:19:00 ◼   ► if they figure out that it's you, you're going to be in trouble and try to intimidate people into

01:19:04 ◼   ► it, into the people who need to be intimidated. I would say most of these people are honorable,

01:19:08 ◼   ► but there are people who are going to be tempted and Apple wants to make it less tempting for them.

01:19:14 ◼   ► But in the end, what prevents them is obscuring it enough that they think that they won't be caught.

01:19:21 ◼   ► Um, cause Apple knows who it's shown things to right. Like, and when and what, and if it,

01:19:28 ◼   ► you know, if it wants to, I'm sure that there are people at Apple who will try to figure it out. If

01:19:32 ◼   ► stuff leaks, like who could that possibly be? And it's people's job, right? So I'll say like,

01:19:38 ◼   ► you know, I always want to know this information. If people give this information out and you know,

01:19:44 ◼   ► it gets written up, if there's anything interesting, we'll cover it on the show.

01:19:47 ◼   ► You know, it's kind of what we do. I would just say though, like if you are a developer who gets

01:19:51 ◼   ► a developer kit, don't, it's not worth it. Like, yeah, don't, it is more worth it to you to keep

01:19:58 ◼   ► your relationship with Apple the way that you want it to be. This is, I'm assuming your livelihood,

01:20:04 ◼   ► right? Or like at least part of that, or you want it to be, uh, don't just keep it to yourself.

01:20:08 ◼   ► It's not worth it. There is probably not going to be anything in this device that is worthy of

01:20:16 ◼   ► the information to people. Like we've experienced it. We see it in the simulator. Like I just think

01:20:23 ◼   ► it's not worth the risk to you and your business or the people you work for to divulge this

01:20:30 ◼   ► information. I just, I think for this device specifically, it isn't, it isn't worth it, but

01:20:36 ◼   ► you do you. Yeah. Also, um, I would say it is,

01:20:44 ◼   ► I would, I think that Apple should be encouraged to do stuff like let developers have access and

01:20:53 ◼   ► get developer kits out to developers. Um, the more things happen that Apple hates about it,

01:21:02 ◼   ► the more ammunition there is for people on the inside to say, oh, you see, we should never have

01:21:06 ◼   ► done this. We should have never let the hardware out the door. We should never have trusted them.

01:21:10 ◼   ► And, um, that's not, that's not good for anybody, I think. But I do, I mean, I think I said this

01:21:16 ◼   ► in Connected. I do think that Apple should allow some developers to talk about their experiences

01:21:22 ◼   ► of using the developer kit freely. Um, and you know, maybe that they work out some arrangements

01:21:27 ◼   ► with some people to do that because I think that there is a like advocacy piece that could be very

01:21:33 ◼   ► important for them. Remember that, um, the stuff like David Smith posting about his sort of rabbit

01:21:41 ◼   ► hole he went down with Vision OS, that stuff used to be not allowed. Yes. It used to be able to not

01:21:47 ◼   ► talk about it at all. It was 100% NDA'd, 100%. All of Xcode, right? Like all of the SDK, I should say,

01:21:55 ◼   ► to use it, you had to sign a blanket NDA, which is hilarious to think back in time to what that,

01:22:01 ◼   ► you know, like the, to all of the developer tools were under NDA. Yeah. Yeah. And all the betas.

01:22:07 ◼   ► Yep. And even for, for me as a member of the press, right, it was like, well, you would get

01:22:11 ◼   ► it, but you can't write about it. And then, and that changed over time in part because people did

01:22:17 ◼   ► write about it anyway. But I think you're, you make a good point. Even when I started podcasting,

01:22:22 ◼   ► I think that was the case. Like that I would install the betas, but I had to talk about

01:22:27 ◼   ► things I'd found online. I couldn't talk about my, it was very strange. Yeah. So Apple benefits from

01:22:34 ◼   ► David Smith writing about these issues and talking about what he learned. He's essentially creating

01:22:38 ◼   ► information for all the other potential Vision Pro developers to read it and think about it and

01:22:44 ◼   ► learn what he learned from him. And it's all to the benefit of Apple building this platform and

01:22:51 ◼   ► having the developers get on this platform. So what you don't want is Apple saying, nobody talk

01:22:56 ◼   ► about anything, right? You don't want that. And maybe when they're in these things, they'll say,

01:23:01 ◼   ► look, you can talk about what you learned here. Don't talk about your experience using the

01:23:06 ◼   ► hardware, right? I mean, they could set some ground rules and I think they should because

01:23:11 ◼   ► it benefits them. Like the secrecy, look, what they're trying to prevent is the first sort of

01:23:17 ◼   ► like, I got to use a developer kit and here's what the secret of the Vision Pro is going to be.

01:23:24 ◼   ► Cause I use Vision Pro hardware, which is a little bit silly cause it's going to be, Apple knows that.

01:23:28 ◼   ► And so Apple is going to make the developer kits limited and they're not going to have the

01:23:33 ◼   ► experience that we had at WWDC, right? They're not. So there are other tactics that Apple can

01:23:39 ◼   ► use to prevent stories that they don't want, but this is a story that they want, right? They want

01:23:46 ◼   ► developers to help other developers with their insight into what's going on. They actually want

01:23:55 ◼   ► to kind of create that space. So I hope that they will open at least a little bit of space for

01:24:00 ◼   ► developers to talk about this stuff. - Yeah, because you're right. Like it's not going to be

01:24:04 ◼   ► the same experience. The best, the experience has already been spoken about. Like if we hadn't

01:24:11 ◼   ► gotten the chance or the other members of the media hadn't gotten the chance to use this thing,

01:24:16 ◼   ► then there would be more of, I think, an interest, a public interest for developers to talk about

01:24:21 ◼   ► their experience. - Which I think is, it's part of the strategy that they came up with for this thing.

01:24:25 ◼   ► But, and that's why I'm hopeful that this is going to be more open than we think it's going to be.

01:24:32 ◼   ► Because I think, personally, that it's more harmful to Apple and to the Vision Pro platform going

01:24:41 ◼   ► forward, Vision OS going forward, to create a culture of fear about talking about it

01:24:48 ◼   ► than any story that could be written about the developer kit or about these developer sessions,

01:24:58 ◼   ► right? And I get that there's a privacy angle here, which is Apple doesn't want people writing

01:25:01 ◼   ► about the sessions and all that. And that's fine. But in a larger sense about imparting information,

01:25:08 ◼   ► you know, Apple benefits from all the developers talking about this stuff. It really does. And I

01:25:14 ◼   ► can't conceive of something leaking that would be more damaging because it's going to be about a beta

01:25:24 ◼   ► with limited, it's just not going to be that interesting. And it's so far before this thing

01:25:27 ◼   ► ships. They're more, they're going to benefit more from an open policy, is what I'm saying,

01:25:32 ◼   ► than from a closed policy here. I don't think that press reports about this are going to hurt them,

01:25:39 ◼   ► and developers talking to other developers about what they've learned will help them in the long

01:25:43 ◼   ► run. Yeah, I hope that we have, you know, a different experience here in the next

01:25:49 ◼   ► couple of months than the way that it would appear to be based on the documentation that has been

01:25:57 ◼   ► shared with developers, right? That like, what we will see over the next weeks or months might

01:26:05 ◼   ► include more freely speaking about experiences. But at first, it's everyone hush hush. Right. And

01:26:14 ◼   ► there is danger, right? There is danger that somebody's going to say, "I tried it and it

01:26:18 ◼   ► doesn't live up to it. The simulator is good, but the actual hardware is bad." And everybody will be

01:26:25 ◼   ► like, "Well, yeah, it's not shipping and it's beta and whatever, but they can create some clouds."

01:26:29 ◼   ► Again, it's so far off. I get it. But, you know, or as our friend James Thompson says,

01:26:36 ◼   ► at some point when somebody gets a developer kit, they're going to be able to use it all day and say,

01:26:42 ◼   ► "I tried to use a Vision Pro all day and it hurt my head and it made me very sad." And that's going

01:26:47 ◼   ► to be bad. Although again, Apple will say, "Well, but the straps aren't final and yada, yada, yada,

01:26:52 ◼   ► fitting." And like, they're going to be able to massage all of that too. I just think in the long

01:26:56 ◼   ► run, if you play that defensive game, first off, people are going to say what they're going to say

01:27:01 ◼   ► regardless. Like you can't really control it. And what you run is for your developers who do care

01:27:07 ◼   ► and are not going to the press to be able to express things that help the rest of the

01:27:11 ◼   ► developer community because it lifts the platform, which is the goal. That's Apple's goal.

01:27:18 ◼   ► We'll see. I mean, we'll see if anything changes. I think the developers' lab things are starting

01:27:24 ◼   ► now. I think they've started as of today, I think.

01:27:29 ◼   ► And if you've had an experience with it, send it to up... No, don't. We said don't send it to

01:27:34 ◼   ► upgradefeedback.com. We don't want it. We want you to follow your NDA and learn about this OS.

01:27:40 ◼   ► Yep. You can send us anonymous stuff, but we're not going to use it.

01:27:44 ◼   ► Send us cryptic anonymous stuff that makes no sense. And we thank you.

01:27:49 ◼   ► You can always send that stuff over upgradefeedback.com. Jason, I don't know if you

01:27:53 ◼   ► call you, but I thought it was very funny to hear on ATP the discussion of our anonymous feedback

01:27:58 ◼   ► sent in to us about the quote. I haven't heard that yet, but that's exciting.

01:28:02 ◼   ► They talk about that, which is very funny to me. Anonymous informants.

01:28:05 ◼   ► The anonymous informants are out there and they send in their feedback at upgradefeedback.com,

01:28:10 ◼   ► just like you can. You can also send in your questions and your follow up there for us to

01:28:14 ◼   ► discuss on a future episode. You can check out Jason's work, which you've heard all about how

01:28:19 ◼   ► it's written today over at sixcolors.com. And you can hear his podcasts over at theincorporated.com

01:28:24 ◼   ► and here on Relay FM. You can listen to my shows here on Relay FM and check out my work over at

01:28:29 ◼   ► cortexbrand.com. We're on Mastodon and Threads. Jason is at JSNEL, J-S-N-E-L-L-L. I am at I-Mike,

01:28:38 ◼   ► I-M-Y-K-E. And you can also find the show on Mastodon as @upgrade on relayfm.social.

01:28:44 ◼   ► You can see video clips of the show there and TikTok and Instagram where we are @upgraderelay.

01:28:50 ◼   ► Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus and thank you to our sponsor of

01:28:55 ◼   ► this episode, Tax Expander. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until

01:29:00 ◼   ► then, say goodbye to JSNEL. I'm always angry. That's my secret.

01:29:17 ◼   ► [ Silence ]