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00:00:00 ◼   ► This is "Apple Corps History." I'm Jason Snell. The story of the struggle for power

00:00:19 ◼   ► is eternal. As you've no doubt heard on this podcast and numerous other less popular history

00:00:26 ◼   ► podcasts, many of the darkest moments of humanity have emerged directly from the frequently

00:00:32 ◼   ► violent quest for supreme power over others. Sure, the most visible of these events involve

00:00:38 ◼   ► overthrowing a leader, but many consequential changes are all about the struggle for power

00:00:43 ◼   ► and influence over that leader. Whether the struggle is happening in a royal court or

00:00:48 ◼   ► a corporate office, the true story of our history can't be told without shining a light

00:00:53 ◼   ► on those hidden backroom battles. So let me tell you the story arc of a place that has

00:00:57 ◼   ► seen its power wax and wane through the years, weathering decades of decay and huge upswings

00:01:03 ◼   ► in fortune. The power behind the scenes, the power on the throne, and most of all, the

00:01:09 ◼   ► many colors that drove it. For nearly 50 years, the small island nation of Cupertonia has

00:01:21 ◼   ► been ruled by the Color Czar dynasty and its chosen successors. In that time, there have

00:01:25 ◼   ► been eras of stability and eras of great upheaval. In the beginning, which most historians consider

00:01:32 ◼   ► the Beige era, the kingdom was modest. The choice of royal color was not really even

00:01:36 ◼   ► much of a consideration. It was mostly down to the style of the era and the materials

00:01:42 ◼   ► available at the time. It was the 70s. During this period, it was a country on the rise.

00:01:48 ◼   ► The founder, Czar Appel, was a groundbreaking ruler, the likes of which had rarely been

00:01:52 ◼   ► seen in the world at the time. And from a garage in a modest suburb, he established

00:01:57 ◼   ► a strong foothold for future success. Sadly, his reign was very short, quickly replaced

00:02:02 ◼   ► by Czar Appel II. It's this Czar who firmly established Cupertonia on the international

00:02:08 ◼   ► scene. Appel II ceded his power into homes throughout the land and led to a massive reform

00:02:15 ◼   ► in how children were taught in schools. But this era was not without peril. Halfway into

00:02:20 ◼   ► Appel II's reign, a palace coup briefly led to his forced abdication and the seating

00:02:26 ◼   ► of his son as Appel III. Royal advisors felt that the young prince would be better received

00:02:31 ◼   ► by the country's businesses. However, Appel III was utterly rejected by the people. And

00:02:38 ◼   ► after a brief period of confusion in which Appel III and his father, Appel II, contested

00:02:43 ◼   ► the throne, Appel III fled the country, never to be seen again. Darker, unconfirmed versions

00:02:50 ◼   ► of this story suggest his remains can be found in a landfill in the far desert wastes.

00:02:56 ◼   ► The second reign of Appel II, frequently referred to by historians as Appel IIe, was perhaps

00:03:05 ◼   ► even more successful than the first. He picked up right where he left off and led his country

00:03:09 ◼   ► to wide success and admiration. But in the latter days of the beige era, something dark

00:03:15 ◼   ► was moving beneath the surface. A pirate captain known only as Macintosh gradually gained popular

00:03:23 ◼   ► recognition for his raids on enemy lands, most notably in the Battle of Xerox Park,

00:03:28 ◼   ► which brought great spoils back to Cupertonia. With Tsar Appel II lacking a proper heir,

00:03:35 ◼   ► one of his advisors, Sir Stephen, suggested that Macintosh should be brought into the

00:03:39 ◼   ► tsar's ruling circle. Macintosh gradually accumulated more power and status until he

00:03:44 ◼   ► officially became the new heir. While the old tsar lingered for several years before

00:03:50 ◼   ► dying, it was always clear that Macintosh was the one running the kingdom.

00:03:57 ◼   ► Now historians disagree about the start of what we'll call the Platinum Era. However,

00:04:03 ◼   ► most would say it involves the succession of Macintosh II to the throne, and the exile

00:04:09 ◼   ► of trusted advisor Sir Stephen, putting the beige era firmly in the past. But despite

00:04:15 ◼   ► the catchy name, the Platinum Era was a dark time for the kingdom. Across the sea, the

00:04:20 ◼   ► great Wintel Alliance grew and thrived as the island kingdom became more insular and

00:04:26 ◼   ► almost irrelevant on the world stage, and dysfunctional within. Tsar Macintosh II was

00:04:32 ◼   ► succeeded not by a single heir, but by a ruling council, including his children Performa,

00:04:37 ◼   ► Quadra, and Centris, as well as a gnome named Newton. The Macintosh family cycled through

00:04:43 ◼   ► numerous advisors during this period, beginning with a wizard named Sir John, who roamed the

00:04:48 ◼   ► countryside carrying his magical Book of Power. After the failure of Sir Michael, a confident

00:04:53 ◼   ► Sir Gilbert took over. Although Sir Gilbert's era as advisor is generally not well thought

00:04:59 ◼   ► of, he did make a single move that changed the course of history. He convinced the ruling

00:05:05 ◼   ► family to bring Sir Stephen back from exile.

00:05:15 ◼   ► Sir Stephen's first action was to eliminate the rest of the Privy Council, including Sir

00:05:19 ◼   ► Gilbert, and take full control himself. Within a year, he and a previously obscure court

00:05:25 ◼   ► magician named Ive completely changed Cupertonia's trajectory. Sir Stephen embarked on numerous

00:05:31 ◼   ► reforms, including the abolition of the ruling council. Though he insisted he would not make

00:05:35 ◼   ► himself king, after a short time he was indeed crowned King I. Macintosh. Thus ended the

00:05:42 ◼   ► Platinum Era.

00:05:44 ◼   ► But while Cupertonia was poised to emerge as a world power, it took several years of

00:05:48 ◼   ► gradually building power to get there. The king's charismatic advisor, now styled as

00:05:54 ◼   ► Lord Ive, was named the Color Tsar, and ushered in I. Macintosh's era of rainbow colors,

00:06:01 ◼   ► formerly known as the Aqua Era.

00:06:07 ◼   ► It was a momentous flourishing of art and culture. Clubs were filled with young people

00:06:12 ◼   ► dancing in silhouette against brightly colored backgrounds. The country was so brightly colored

00:06:17 ◼   ► in fact that several observers commented that you almost wanted to lick it. But it wouldn't

00:06:23 ◼   ► last. The king and Lord Ive, feeling they had gone too far, became more conservative

00:06:29 ◼   ► in later years, and the country entered a new monochrome age.

00:06:33 ◼   ► This age, while less exciting than the previous era, saw the nation continue to flourish.

00:06:38 ◼   ► The economy diversified into music and telecommunications. The little island was poised to become a dominant

00:06:44 ◼   ► economic force when tragedy struck. King I. Macintosh died and was succeeded not by his

00:06:51 ◼   ► heirs or Lord Ive, but by Sir Timothy, a court official not widely known but famed for his

00:06:58 ◼   ► efficiency by insiders.

00:07:03 ◼   ► Sir Timothy refused all regnal names, choosing humbly to rule simply as "Tim." Legendary

00:07:09 ◼   ► stories abound of Tim introducing himself to peasants as if they didn't know who he

00:07:13 ◼   ► was. Under Tim's gently official rule, the island flourished, its economy growing to

00:07:20 ◼   ► be among the largest in the world. Lord Ive retired and was given a suspiciously enthusiastic

00:07:25 ◼   ► send-off. But behind the scenes, there was infighting that made this new era more dramatic

00:07:30 ◼   ► than you would think given the success of the period. A new power group, the Space Grays,

00:07:35 ◼   ► vied with the traditional silvers for control of the island's professional class. In the

00:07:40 ◼   ► communications sector, there was a bit of a loosening of the land's tight controls,

00:07:45 ◼   ► and a light palette of colors would occasionally appear for a season before being reined in.

00:07:52 ◼   ► Which brings us to the present day. Sir Timothy rules over an enormous economic empire with

00:07:57 ◼   ► cheery efficiency. The ruling castle was moved to a larger, even more circular structure.

00:08:02 ◼   ► And in recent years, there has been a flowering of color in Cupertonia. Beginning in 2020,

00:08:07 ◼   ► six colors reminiscent of those found in the early days of King I. Macintosh spread throughout

00:08:12 ◼   ► the land. Though, in order to keep monochrome hardliners in check, silver remains the predominant

00:08:18 ◼   ► color, with the Space Grays also still in the mix.

00:08:24 ◼   ► These days, it's a bit hard to tell who's actually in charge, especially for those of

00:08:28 ◼   ► us who are on the outside. Now if you'll allow me a little bit of Cupertinology, the

00:08:34 ◼   ► flowering of the six colors, plus silver, strongly suggested that even with Lord Ive

00:08:39 ◼   ► being gone, a new color czar was flourishing behind the scenes. However, in the last year

00:08:45 ◼   ► it's become unclear if that color czar remains in power, or if they've been marginalized.

00:08:51 ◼   ► The rise of two radical spin-offs of silver and space gray, known as Midnight and Starlight,

00:08:57 ◼   ► have called into question the long-held stability of the peace inside the castle gates. It's

00:09:02 ◼   ► hard for even the most experienced Cupertinologists to read the tea leaves and come up with an

00:09:07 ◼   ► explanation for what's happening inside those curved glass walls.

00:09:11 ◼   ► In the last few months, we've seen some signals that the colors of I. Macintosh are

00:09:15 ◼   ► at least continuing unchanged, though it's hard to say if that's a sign that the color

00:09:20 ◼   ► czar survives and is fighting back, or if opposing forces just haven't had time to

00:09:26 ◼   ► overcome them. And what are we to make of this new splinter faction, the Titanium Naturals?

00:09:33 ◼   ► Are they merely a one-year phenomenon, or do they have longer-term plans?

00:09:38 ◼   ► That's the thing about history. The only answer to the future of the island of Cupertonia

00:09:43 ◼   ► can be obtained by watching and waiting.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Before we go, a plug for our next episode. A was the scarlet letter, but for USB, would

00:09:56 ◼   ► a trip to the C be even more dangerous? This has been Apple Corps History.

00:10:01 ◼   ► [music]

00:10:22 ◼   ► [music]

00:10:38 ◼   ► From Real AFM, ho ho ho, this is the upgraded holiday special for 2023.

00:10:45 ◼   ► Today's episode is brought to you by Fitbod, Ladder and Notion.

00:10:49 ◼   ► My name is Mike Hurley, you've just heard him, but that was Jason Snell.

00:10:53 ◼   ► Hello, Jason Snell.

00:10:54 ◼   ► I am the host of Applecore History, Mike.

00:10:57 ◼   ► Now that's my new title.

00:10:58 ◼   ► I have a Snell Talk question for you from me, which is,

00:11:02 ◼   ► can you tell us about the idea and where on earth it came from?

00:11:05 ◼   ► Okay, well, it came from my stupid brain.

00:11:09 ◼   ► And part of it was listening to the podcast that I mentioned last week,

00:11:13 ◼   ► The Rest is History, and thinking about history podcasts.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And the other thing is that you and I were talking about history,

00:11:20 ◼   ► or holiday special ideas, like this summer.

00:11:25 ◼   ► And I had an idea, it was like one of those, like,

00:11:27 ◼   ► had the idea in the shower kind of moments where I'm like,

00:11:30 ◼   ► oh, oh, we did that murder podcast about the butterfly keyboard.

00:11:36 ◼   ► And I thought, what if we do one about the color czar?

00:11:38 ◼   ► Because we lament the idea that there's a color czar at Apple,

00:11:41 ◼   ► but maybe they don't actually exist, that somebody should be in charge of this.

00:11:44 ◼   ► And I thought, well, who killed the color czar would be kind of funny.

00:11:47 ◼   ► But as I started to think about it, I was like, I don't know how to write that.

00:11:50 ◼   ► I don't know how you do an entirely invented murder of the color czar.

00:11:53 ◼   ► And I thought, color czar sounds more like a historical figure.

00:11:56 ◼   ► I've been listening to these history podcasts and I thought, you know,

00:12:00 ◼   ► that's the way to do it, is to have it be this bizarre fantasy world

00:12:05 ◼   ► of the color czar dynasties at Apple. And then, you know,

00:12:11 ◼   ► I was sick and I was taking cold medicine and I just sat down and I wrote a crazy

00:12:15 ◼   ► thing and there it is. So I hope everybody enjoyed, or at least it's over now,

00:12:19 ◼   ► the Apple core history story of the color czars.

00:12:22 ◼   ► Yeah, there, that was it. We do a weird thing every now and then. That was it.

00:12:27 ◼   ► 10 minutes of weird. - And that one specific, like, you know,

00:12:31 ◼   ► as you say, we're reprising, I think one of my favorite episodes

00:12:34 ◼   ► of Upgrade, which is the serial port, which is called

00:12:38 ◼   ► Who Killed the Butterfly Keyboard, episode 277.

00:12:43 ◼   ► We're actually doing a lot of revisiting because shortly we're going to revisit

00:12:46 ◼   ► episode 225, which was the holiday special for the

00:12:50 ◼   ► year later, but you'll hear about that shortly.

00:12:53 ◼   ► So that was really fun. I liked, I like putting the music to that too.

00:12:57 ◼   ► So like I put this little music bed in. I actually,

00:13:00 ◼   ► a service I use called Epidemic Sound and they do, I really recommend them,

00:13:04 ◼   ► actually. They're really good for licensed music.

00:13:06 ◼   ► And we were going backwards and forwards on some stuff and I ended up finding they

00:13:09 ◼   ► have a whole playlist of music for history podcasts.

00:13:12 ◼   ► That's how I found that track in the end. - Amazing. That's so good.

00:13:16 ◼   ► Yeah, so it was like four, it was what, was it like, was it like six years ago or

00:13:21 ◼   ► four years ago that we did that? - It was 2017, I think.

00:13:27 ◼   ► - All right, so six years ago. - Oh, sorry, it was 2019. - No, it was 2019.

00:13:31 ◼   ► So it's four years ago. So we're flashing back with that to four years ago

00:13:34 ◼   ► and then we're going to be flashing back to five years ago pretty soon.

00:13:37 ◼   ► So anyway, we do fun stuff. It's just silly. I hope you liked it and if you

00:13:41 ◼   ► didn't, that's fine. We're never going to do it again. So, or maybe we'll do it in

00:13:44 ◼   ► four years and you can just forget about it then. But anyway, it was,

00:13:48 ◼   ► yeah, out of my own addled brain, I started laughing. And there's some jokes.

00:13:51 ◼   ► I mean, there's references in there that made me laugh and I sent them to Stephen

00:13:55 ◼   ► Hackett and made him laugh and like, okay, I'll put that in there. Some people

00:13:58 ◼   ► get it, some people won't. I don't care. It's fine. It was just silly.

00:14:01 ◼   ► - My favorite part, I know we're like, we're talking a lot about the thing that

00:14:03 ◼   ► people just heard, but my favorite part is the Just Tim. That really got me.

00:14:08 ◼   ► - Just Tim. - He wants Just to be known as Tim. - Yeah. Actually,

00:14:11 ◼   ► the moment that I laughed, I cackled and I thought, okay, this is going to work is

00:14:15 ◼   ► when it was like a pirate named Macintosh. And I was like, okay, we're here.

00:14:20 ◼   ► We got it. - This was one of those things, which is very typical upgrade where

00:14:24 ◼   ► we're talking about a thing, we're talking about a thing. Should we do this?

00:14:27 ◼   ► Should we do that? We're not sure. And then all of a sudden in an afternoon,

00:14:31 ◼   ► it just all comes together, right? Like you were just like, oh, I got it now.

00:14:34 ◼   ► And then it's done. - I got it. - Yeah. We do that a lot on this show.

00:14:37 ◼   ► That's the entirety of the Summer of Fun, is that. - It is. It is. Happy holidays, everybody.

00:14:43 ◼   ► - This episode is brought to you by Fitbod. When you want to change your fitness level,

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00:16:47 ◼   ► that is F I T B O D.me/upgrade for 25% off your membership. Our thanks to Fitbod for

00:16:53 ◼   ► their support of this show and Relay FM. We welcome a returning ghost to the show

00:17:01 ◼   ► for our holiday special. Federico Vittucci, welcome back.

00:17:03 ◼   ► Hello, am I still in ghost form? No, I think you would be in now form, right?

00:17:10 ◼   ► You're in now form and you're not yet. In fact, what I think what we should say, Mike, is that

00:17:15 ◼   ► we recently built a time machine and sent Federico five years into the past as a ghost to give us a

00:17:22 ◼   ► ghostly message from the future, our past selves. And with that having been completed, it's time

00:17:28 ◼   ► for us to debrief about what Federico told Jason and Mike of five years ago.

00:17:33 ◼   ► AKA, in December of 2018 on episode 225 of Upgrade, which is called The Upgrade Christmas Carol,

00:17:42 ◼   ► we were visited by the ghost of Upgrade Future, which is Federico Vittucci, and Federico told us

00:17:48 ◼   ► a bunch of things. And now we're gonna, we're gonna work out, I guess, was he lying or not?

00:17:52 ◼   ► It's probably the way to consider it, right? Just tricking us?

00:17:55 ◼   ► Yeah, was he just tricking us? So we have a selection of topics that Federico gave

00:18:00 ◼   ► premonitions on. And basically, we've had a few people write into us saying that we should go

00:18:05 ◼   ► through this because there are some, some creepy things in here when you go back and look at it.

00:18:10 ◼   ► So this was five years ago, right? Five years ago.

00:18:13 ◼   ► So I think, I think a good way to, to sort of separate Ghost Federico from actual Federico

00:18:21 ◼   ► is to spell Ghost Federico with a PH. So it's like a phantom.

00:18:25 ◼   ► You know? I like it.

00:18:26 ◼   ► Federico. Alright, so we're going to start out with the first predictions on Marzipan,

00:18:35 ◼   ► as it was known in 2018, which became Mac Catalyst. The ghost said, "In 2019, Marzipan happened. And

00:18:45 ◼   ► when it, when it came out, these apps were so much better than the preview apps that came the year

00:18:49 ◼   ► before, when Apple did the weird thing with Apple News. Those apps were terrible. The final framework

00:18:55 ◼   ► was so much better." So I guess this was back in, I guess 2018, 2017, we got the preview apps,

00:19:02 ◼   ► right? That Apple created, which were bad. And then we got Mac Catalyst. Was it much better?

00:19:08 ◼   ► I don't think it was much better. Better?

00:19:12 ◼   ► Better. Yeah, but much better. I think maybe it took, it took Catalyst another revision

00:19:20 ◼   ► to get even more settings. And correct me, Jason, if I'm wrong, but like the text scaling and like

00:19:26 ◼   ► all those options, they didn't become available until the second revision of Catalyst. So it

00:19:32 ◼   ► wasn't right away. And even still, I don't think it's much better. Like you can tell today, it's

00:19:40 ◼   ► better, but you can still tell if you're using a Mac Catalyst app.

00:19:43 ◼   ► I think we're going to, should we give this one to the Phantom, Jason?

00:19:46 ◼   ► I think so. And here's the reason why is something that isn't in the quote that Federico also said at

00:19:50 ◼   ► this point that I loved, a little nice, a nice touch about this. He said, and he did this a few

00:19:57 ◼   ► times. He said, "What was that thing that you guys were talking about back then? Marzipan? Was that

00:20:03 ◼   ► it?" This attitude that things that were really of the moment for us then, five years from now,

00:20:08 ◼   ► we would look back and I'd be like, was that it? I don't even remember. And not only is that true,

00:20:13 ◼   ► but now five years later, I look back on it and go, was that it? Marzipan? Was that what we

00:20:17 ◼   ► called that thing? To remember back to WWDC when they announced Mac Catalyst, it was the same one

00:20:22 ◼   ► where they also announced SwiftUI. So as soon as it became available, it was already outdated in

00:20:27 ◼   ► a way, right? Like what at least was the way that Apple presented it. That was a weird WWDC.

00:20:31 ◼   ► Very weird. That was very strange. So moving to the iPad now. So the Phantom says,

00:20:38 ◼   ► "You guys still don't have track pads for your iPads, right?" They enabled that eventually,

00:20:42 ◼   ► track pad support. It started as an accessibility feature. Correct. That was correct. This was the

00:20:51 ◼   ► time when Mikey, you were an iPad user primarily, and you were using the "accessibility" pointer

00:20:59 ◼   ► as a way to have a, with a mouse on your iPad, with a Logitech mouse, I think. Logitech plugged

00:21:05 ◼   ► into my iPad. Plugged in? Because the, what was it? Why were you using a plugged in? Uh, I, I just,

00:21:13 ◼   ► I think the Bluetooth didn't work. Yeah. I don't think Bluetooth works so well. I think it needed

00:21:18 ◼   ► a USB connection. And so that was why I ended up using, um, yeah, yeah, that was correct. They

00:21:24 ◼   ► eventually did enable track pad support in 2020. So you were right on the money there. Uh, you also

00:21:30 ◼   ► said, "Don't lose hope on Apple making pro versions of their apps for iOS." This nearly didn't happen

00:21:36 ◼   ► in time. We aren't there in the end. We just barely got in there. Uh, look, accounts, we have,

00:21:45 ◼   ► we have, uh, we have a logic, we have final cut. They're even releasing updates for those apps. So,

00:21:50 ◼   ► you know, they haven't forgotten about them. I know that some people on this call would argue

00:21:55 ◼   ► whether they're good enough, but they are at least available. That's beyond the scope of the

00:22:00 ◼   ► ghost predictions. And then I love this one. We have an almost 14 inch iPad and also a 15 point

00:22:08 ◼   ► something inch iPad pro. And this talk Apple's going to do an even bigger one. They don't make

00:22:13 ◼   ► the 9.7 anymore. They don't make the iPad mini anymore. The range starts from 11 inches and goes

00:22:19 ◼   ► up to 15 inches. Ah, no, this is not correct. Um, so, uh, yeah, they're still making all the iPads.

00:22:29 ◼   ► In fact, they're probably making too many iPads. One could argue. Maybe. The ghost wanted the

00:22:36 ◼   ► consolidation that we don't have still today. We don't have it. We don't have it. Also the ghost

00:22:41 ◼   ► didn't like the, you know, got rid of the iPad mini, which I think is unfortunate. I'm pleased

00:22:45 ◼   ► the ghost was wrong. Yeah. Was, was the redesigned iPad mini out yet? No, no, no. That was 21 or

00:22:53 ◼   ► something. 21. Okay. Something like that. It's not, it's been a couple of years. We still had

00:22:58 ◼   ► the one with the home button and probably like an A12 or something like that. That's why the

00:23:03 ◼   ► ghost didn't like it. Yeah. Big iPad does sound like a good idea though. I still think that this

00:23:09 ◼   ► is true to a point, right? Like they're still rumouring it, but they're not going to get rid

00:23:14 ◼   ► of the smaller sizes though. But the bigger ones, I think, yeah, I think that'll happen.

00:23:19 ◼   ► The 9.7 isn't around anymore though. Right? Cause like the smallest one is, is bigger than 9.7.

00:23:23 ◼   ► Oh, it's 10 something. Right. 10.2. I think. Um, yeah. So that is the only detail that is correct,

00:23:31 ◼   ► but otherwise, um, and the ghost didn't even consider, uh, five years ago, I guess the

00:23:36 ◼   ► evolution of foldable devices. Uh, I'm pretty sure that wasn't a thing in 2018. Well, but it would

00:23:43 ◼   ► have been wrong to say that by now we'd have, but this idea of like going even bigger than 15 inch,

00:23:52 ◼   ► you gotta believe that at some point Apple will make a foldable tablet that like when it's closed,

00:23:57 ◼   ► like you, you don't want to carry around a 17 inch or a 20 inch slab of glass that doesn't fold,

00:24:03 ◼   ► I think. Otherwise just carry around an iMac or something, you know. Another great subject name,

00:24:10 ◼   ► Arm Max. Oh yeah. Remember Arm Max? Arm Max. The big change was in 2020 when we started seeing the

00:24:19 ◼   ► first Arm Max. So 2020 was the year of the revolution, essentially. I mean, nailed it.

00:24:25 ◼   ► Nailed it. One of my favorite moments in this entire episode is that when you say the year of

00:24:31 ◼   ► the revolution, Mike and I are concerned that there's been a literal revolution

00:24:36 ◼   ► and you had to reassure us that no, I just mean in computers, let's not talk about politics.

00:24:41 ◼   ► Although that almost happened in the US. That's a different topic.

00:24:44 ◼   ► You know what? That's a really good point. There was an attempt. It would have also been very

00:24:49 ◼   ► helpful if the ghost could have let us know what 2020 was actually going to be like.

00:24:52 ◼   ► Oh yeah. Well, I did say, the ghost did say the year of the revolution, so, you know.

00:24:58 ◼   ► Depends how you think about it. You did suggest that there was some trouble happening, but.

00:25:02 ◼   ► Yeah, the wrong kind of trouble. WWDC 2020 was the beginning of the transition from Intel to Arm.

00:25:09 ◼   ► And initially we thought maybe Apple's just going to do the MacBook Air first or like the smaller

00:25:14 ◼   ► computers with fewer and smaller requirements. They did that initially, then they started

00:25:18 ◼   ► transitioning the base models of everything, but the change happened very quickly. So in 2021,

00:25:22 ◼   ► we had the first MacBook Pros and the Mac Pros and the iMac Pros and even the Mac Mini with Arm.

00:25:28 ◼   ► So close. Kind of. I think this is close enough. I think it's more accurate than not accurate.

00:25:36 ◼   ► I think your idea here was that the base models, right, which was true actually with the Mac Mini,

00:25:43 ◼   ► but Mac Pro came a little bit later. There wasn't an iMac Pro, but like

00:25:47 ◼   ► it did. The change did happen very quickly and it did start with the MacBook Air and go very quickly.

00:25:53 ◼   ► And the MacBook Pro was next, right? The MacBook Pro was in 2021. Well, I guess depending on how

00:25:58 ◼   ► you look at it, there was a MacBook Pro in 2020, but it wasn't the one we were looking for. But

00:26:03 ◼   ► yeah, the only thing is just the iMac Pro doesn't exist anymore.

00:26:06 ◼   ► The poor iMac Pro. It's one and done. It didn't happen.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Unified platform. Oh no, this one is sad.

00:26:15 ◼   ► Unified platform. We reached the point where it was clear that Apple was moving to a unified

00:26:22 ◼   ► platform, which is what we have now. And it's very fun. Apple has moved to this vision that

00:26:26 ◼   ► we're enjoying now. It's a single Apple OS, but we don't have hybrid devices. It's kind of more

00:26:31 ◼   ► like a modular thing, especially when you look at the iPad and what the iPad has become in 2023.

00:26:37 ◼   ► It's a perfect example of that vision. I'm just going to read through all these.

00:26:40 ◼   ► Essentially, the iPad has become the laptop for most people. Apple is now making more types of

00:26:45 ◼   ► keyboards and cases for the iPad, but also the UI changes depending on what you're using the iPad

00:26:49 ◼   ► with. No, no, and no. A lot of wishful thinking in this one, I think. Yeah, so the idea was that

00:26:56 ◼   ► they were going to do a single rebrand as a single Apple OS, and each device has its own version of

00:27:03 ◼   ► Apple OS. And no, in fact, they have introduced another separate OS, which is Vision OS. And we

00:27:11 ◼   ► are further from this idea than ever before. So no, the iPad has now become the laptop for most

00:27:21 ◼   ► people. I would argue that's the MacBook Air. And they're not making more types of keyboards and

00:27:26 ◼   ► cases for the iPad. And that's one of my problems with the iPad, but no, they're not doing it. So

00:27:31 ◼   ► this is all incorrect, unfortunately. Well, just to be clear, 2018 was the depths of Mac trouble.

00:27:41 ◼   ► And Apple confusion about the Mac, at least externally. I think maybe by then they had

00:27:45 ◼   ► resolved it internally, but with the years of delay. Because 2018 was, they brought the MacBook

00:27:55 ◼   ► Air back, right? Wasn't that that year? And they did the iPad Pro design, which was nice. But also

00:27:59 ◼   ► they made that claim about how the iPad Pro was faster than PC laptops. And we were in the depths

00:28:04 ◼   ► of the sort of USB-C transition on the MacBook Pro with the butterfly keyboard and all of that.

00:28:09 ◼   ► It was not a great time. So I can see wanting to wish your way out of it a little bit and say,

00:28:15 ◼   ► and we're headed for a direction, a modular direction when in fact, I think they tacked

00:28:21 ◼   ► back the other way toward the Mac. Yeah, that was true. The retina MacBook Air was 2018.

00:28:27 ◼   ► Yeah, that was that Brooklyn event. So we were hot on the heels of that.

00:28:31 ◼   ► Yeah, we were together at that event, Jason. That's true.

00:28:36 ◼   ► Yeah, that's five years ago. Wow. I forgot that you went there, Federico.

00:28:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I forgot about that. I still have most of the stickers they gave us.

00:28:43 ◼   ► I haven't used them. We went to a pub the night before.

00:28:47 ◼   ► We went to Stuart Wellington's bar from the Flothouse. Yeah, we had a meetup there.

00:28:52 ◼   ► I forgot about that. Yeah, that was pretty great. And it taught me how big Brooklyn is because it

00:28:58 ◼   ► was so far from where the Apple event was going to be. It was really far.

00:29:03 ◼   ► How far could it be? It's Brooklyn. It's one borough. It's very, very far away. But yeah,

00:29:08 ◼   ► that was, that was, and like Marco and Casey were there. Yes. That was a, that was a wild event.

00:29:16 ◼   ► That was a wild event. I think I have, look, either I had too many beers that night, or

00:29:23 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure I met that sweet person who sends me, and I assume you, Jason, corrections for typos.

00:29:33 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I'm sure he was there. Yeah, that makes sense. Chris?

00:29:37 ◼   ► Chris. Chris. Mr. Corrector Chris. Chris was there. So I, okay. It wasn't the beers. Okay. Yeah.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I had this recollection. Yeah. It's a premonition. You have enough beers and Chris will appear and

00:29:50 ◼   ► correct you. So onto laptops, you said they don't make the MacBook Air anymore. So it's still the

00:29:57 ◼   ► MacBook. I think it costs $1,299. My Casey list. To be fair, there was a world in which this

00:30:05 ◼   ► definitely seemed like it was the approach, right? Like back then. So they got, the ghost was on a

00:30:11 ◼   ► different timeline, I think. Yeah. The ghost was on that iPad timeline. Yeah. That didn't happen.

00:30:17 ◼   ► Yeah. We're going to say this is AR devices, I guess. I don't really know how you would

00:30:22 ◼   ► approach it. So you said, and finally last year in 2022, they announced glasses. So we have the

00:30:28 ◼   ► glasses now. They're not super great so far, but you can tell how they will get better. Like the

00:30:32 ◼   ► Apple watch did. They're not glasses. So first problem, uh, it wasn't 2022, it was 2023. And

00:30:43 ◼   ► I mean, they're not super great so far. I mean, it's pretty great. It's pretty great.

00:30:48 ◼   ► It's cause I waited a year. Yeah. 2022. It got better. It got better. Yeah. Apple watch.

00:31:00 ◼   ► The Apple watch is so much better than the rudimentary watch that you have. Apple really

00:31:04 ◼   ► focuses on the health and medical aspects of it. Sure. I mean, the Apple watch is better.

00:31:10 ◼   ► We'll give it up five years ago. Yeah. Our watches now they can measure blood pressure and it's kind

00:31:15 ◼   ► of accurate. They did it with these new sensors that they have and it's built into the bands.

00:31:20 ◼   ► No. You're maybe a year away though, right? Maybe, maybe next year, but not now.

00:31:27 ◼   ► We have sensors to measure the hydration by essentially taking a look at the quality of

00:31:33 ◼   ► your skin. No, that's multiple years away. Probably. That's one of my favorite, uh,

00:31:37 ◼   ► descriptions, by the way, the skin quality sensor. I know you mean hydration. That's what you're

00:31:42 ◼   ► going for there. But I also like the idea that your Apple watch can just judge your skin for you.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Bad skin, good skin. You're too dry. Gross.

00:31:55 ◼   ► They did a new design in 2020. Uh, did they? I don't think so. Right. 2021?

00:32:03 ◼   ► When did it get more? Well, is that a new design? The new design was the Apple watch ultra.

00:32:11 ◼   ► And that was not 2020. No. Nobody else is making smartwatches anymore. No, some people are.

00:32:20 ◼   ► They still are. I mean, functionally, I don't know if they really are, but like, actually people

00:32:25 ◼   ► they're at least trying. Apple car. There are no Apple cars yet. There's talk. They're still

00:32:31 ◼   ► working on this special project. A bunch of people left and a bunch more people were hired.

00:32:36 ◼   ► This is very, very correct. This has been the case every year for the last five years.

00:32:42 ◼   ► This is the best one. Oh yeah. This is the whole reason to do this episode.

00:32:49 ◼   ► Quote, somewhere around 2020, Elon Musk kind of lost his mind. So he was replaced as the head of

00:32:57 ◼   ► Tesla. Now he wasn't replaced, but we're going to give you it because I mean, come on. Right.

00:33:04 ◼   ► I mean, it did. Yeah. And then the United States got back on board with doing something for climate

00:33:11 ◼   ► change with the administration after your current one. And so all the car makers realized we need

00:33:16 ◼   ► to get these electric cars actually going. And so there have been around 2020 to 2022,

00:33:22 ◼   ► this massive transmission transition, not transmission. That's the whole point

00:33:25 ◼   ► transition of all the automakers offering cheaper electric cars. Maybe not cheaper.

00:33:30 ◼   ► Yeah. Cheaper is not the right word, but I think you're right in that there was a new

00:33:35 ◼   ► administration that did a lot of, um, sort of plans and subsidies for manufacturer of

00:33:40 ◼   ► electric cars and charging networks and things like that. That absolutely did happen. There's

00:33:46 ◼   ► been a ton of it. So I think this is, this feels pretty bang on to me. I mean, it's a cheaper,

00:33:51 ◼   ► I guess kind of right. There are more options than there were in 2018. Right. It was all just

00:33:55 ◼   ► luxury cars. They're a little more expensive than they should be, but yeah, it's, it's,

00:34:00 ◼   ► it's mostly right. I think on USB-C, I think you're living the worst moment for USB-C in 2018.

00:34:07 ◼   ► Is that true? Okay. Absolutely correct. Oh yeah. The iPhone has USB-C now. Yep.

00:34:15 ◼   ► Thank you. This is my favorite one. And I don't know where it's coming from.

00:34:19 ◼   ► HDMI became obsolete. No, it's more relevant than ever. I think the thinking was, uh, USB-C

00:34:28 ◼   ► will replace everything and we'll have a USB-C connector for everything, including video signals.

00:34:34 ◼   ► Uh, no, we're still using HDMI. 8K TVs now are quite common. No, no, they're not. They're not.

00:34:42 ◼   ► If it could be, they would be because the TV makers are always trying to sell you a new TV,

00:34:47 ◼   ► but they haven't gotten there yet. Not yet, but they will. Give them time. Yeah. Oh yeah.

00:34:51 ◼   ► On a Mac break weekly, Alex Lindsey is constantly talking about how the breakthrough moment for

00:34:57 ◼   ► displays, where they seem like reality is, um, I think he said 8K 120. So that's something to

00:35:05 ◼   ► shoot for 8K at 120 frames a second. So we've got the, so think of how many TVs you'll have to buy

00:35:12 ◼   ► to get there. So is the thinking there that like at that kind of resolution, it almost looks like

00:35:16 ◼   ► you're looking through something? Is that like what he's saying? Yeah. That's the idea is that

00:35:19 ◼   ► there's this moment that kind of it's a breakthrough where your brain starts to process it as if you're

00:35:23 ◼   ► like looking through a window into reality, uh, for things like sports, especially, maybe not for

00:35:27 ◼   ► movies and things. I was going to say, I don't want that for movies and TV. For sports, I would maybe

00:35:31 ◼   ► want it, but I don't. Right. Yeah. I was doing some reading a few months ago, um, because something

00:35:36 ◼   ► happened to, to a relative and I was reading how a lot of, uh, a lot of elderly people, uh, because

00:35:43 ◼   ► of their, you know, when their eyesight gets worse, uh, with age, um, a lot, a lot of older folks,

00:35:51 ◼   ► they, um, they are under this impression sometimes that what, what is actually a television is like

00:35:59 ◼   ► a window in their living rooms. Um, and this is like quite common as a problem. Um, because I,

00:36:07 ◼   ► and I have to assume it's related to that, like their eyesight gets worse. Therefore

00:36:12 ◼   ► they are less susceptible to resolution. And so the image looks more lifelike because they

00:36:19 ◼   ► cannot exactly make up the pixels or the details that we can make out. Like when we're 35 or 40 or

00:36:24 ◼   ► 50, um, quite a fascinating and also quite a, quite a problem. Is this something that glasses fixes or

00:36:30 ◼   ► is it more than that? I don't remember. Um, we've been through this in our family. So, uh, with,

00:36:37 ◼   ► with, uh, with the relative and, uh, it was quite, quite the thing to explain. Um, but yeah, uh, 8k

00:36:44 ◼   ► 120. That's the goal. Something to shoot for. Maybe. I mean, I'm not solving it. I'm thinking,

00:36:51 ◼   ► I'm, I'm thinking especially from the, the idea that for the last 20 years, the TV makers have

00:36:56 ◼   ► realized that they can keep adding things and selling you new TVs when you don't need a new TV

00:37:01 ◼   ► and don't really want a new TV, but they're like, but 3d like, nah, but HDR before K, uh, you know,

00:37:08 ◼   ► right. And then they're going to roll out the next thing and the next thing and the next thing,

00:37:11 ◼   ► because they really want to keep making TVs and selling them to you.

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00:38:45 ◼   ► Speaking of Apple TV plus. Oh, a lot of people in the Apple community made fun of the service

00:38:53 ◼   ► when it launched, but the shows were actually good. Yeah. We got to be clear here. Apple TV plus

00:38:58 ◼   ► like had not been, um, announced even at this point. I think there had been that event.

00:39:06 ◼   ► There had been the event, the streaming event, right? No, I don't think so. No. Okay. So I

00:39:12 ◼   ► edited down this quote. Yeah. Cause he predicted it. He said Jennifer Anderson on stage at an

00:39:17 ◼   ► Apple event is going to be weird. And that was, I think 2019. Right. Wow. Wasn't it 2020? The,

00:39:24 ◼   ► the services event. Wasn't it 2020? Uh, Apple, it was an event. It was in, well, not 2020 cause it

00:39:30 ◼   ► was in person. It was at Apple park. I went, so I think it was 2019. All right. Then March, 2019.

00:39:36 ◼   ► I'm going to give you an extra point for Jennifer. Yeah. I mean, this is so, so we knew an Apple

00:39:44 ◼   ► service was coming. I'm not sure whether we knew the name or not, but, but they hadn't announced

00:39:50 ◼   ► the shows. We knew that the deals had been made for things like the morning show. Right. But I was

00:39:56 ◼   ► very impressed with this because there's a lot of things that you look at it now as if Federico just

00:40:02 ◼   ► had already seen that event and it hadn't happened yet. Bravo. So we're going to give you an extra

00:40:08 ◼   ► point for Jennifer Anderson on stage because you did say that. Did I say that? Yeah. You said it

00:40:13 ◼   ► was weird to see Jennifer Anderson and other stars on stage with, with at an Apple event. Yeah. Okay.

00:40:20 ◼   ► You also said it took them a couple of years to find their style. It's not like every show is a

00:40:24 ◼   ► hit, but I think the quality is consistently good. And some people would say superior to what Netflix

00:40:29 ◼   ► is doing with their originals, which I agree with completely. It did like a lot of the shows that

00:40:34 ◼   ► are good now were around there like for mankind, but they, I think they needed to work out like

00:40:40 ◼   ► that was the kind of show they wanted to make. Right. And then they've kind of modeled around

00:40:43 ◼   ► that. And here we go again, it comes bundled. If you buy an Apple TV 8K, the actual device

00:40:50 ◼   ► big into 8K back in 2018. I was thinking with the 8K, man, I don't know. It's like, oh, let's go,

00:40:58 ◼   ► baby. 8K. It does. It did come and it does come bundled. I think. Are they still doing that? You

00:41:05 ◼   ► got the first three months free or something? Three months free with a new purchase of a device.

00:41:09 ◼   ► Yeah. Okay. So, but not the Apple TV 8K. But I love this one. Get HDI TV because all of the

00:41:17 ◼   ► shows on Apple TV, the service will support Dolby Vision by support. And that's true. Yeah. They

00:41:23 ◼   ► do. Boom. It looks great. Absolutely true. This is the best one. Maybe it's either this or the

00:41:28 ◼   ► HDMI one. You remember when you used to do your upstream segment? Yeah. That became a show. I

00:41:34 ◼   ► think he'll come to this decision in a couple of years. Well, if I'm being honest, I, that planted

00:41:41 ◼   ► a seed in my head of like, oh, maybe it should be a show. What would, what would that be? And how

00:41:46 ◼   ► would that be? And in the end, uh, yeah, down, downstream is a show. So in part, because I was

00:41:54 ◼   ► thinking of the existence of it because the ghost told me. So it's like a, what do they call that?

00:41:59 ◼   ► It's a, uh, it's a grandfather paradox. It's a, it's a bootstrap paradox where the, the prediction

00:42:05 ◼   ► causes the thing that was being reported on. So it's completely circular. So a good job, ghost.

00:42:11 ◼   ► You created a time loop. You made a very specific record, like prediction about me, which was Mike,

00:42:17 ◼   ► you will eventually get into role-playing games than a Nintendo switch. You will become obsessed

00:42:21 ◼   ► with playing Japanese RPGs, which is not true. Interesting. I don't know where you were coming

00:42:26 ◼   ► from at that moment, but clearly me neither. If you want to recommend any JRPGs for me, Federico,

00:42:32 ◼   ► I'll try them out, but I've yet to become obsessed with them. There's, there's one, I think you like

00:42:37 ◼   ► very sort of a pixel art aesthetic, very easy to get into. Sea of stars.

00:42:42 ◼   ► Sea of stars. All right. I'm looking for a new game, so I'll try out sea of stars.

00:42:46 ◼   ► But we still have a Nintendo switch and it's still the first model.

00:42:50 ◼   ► It's the same one. It's the same one.

00:42:53 ◼   ► Same one, baby. Well, I guess we got OLED, right?

00:42:55 ◼   ► Yeah. I had this conversation, um, over Thanksgiving with my son where we're sitting

00:43:02 ◼   ► at my brother-in-law's house and he's just sitting next to me playing a game on the Nintendo switch.

00:43:07 ◼   ► And I leaned over and I said, that was a pretty good birthday present, huh? Because it's the

00:43:12 ◼   ► original Nintendo switch that we got him, whatever that was five, six years ago. And the fact that

00:43:18 ◼   ► he still, I mean, when he's at home or at home or at school or whatever, he's playing on the PS5,

00:43:22 ◼   ► right? But he's traveling and he's got the Nintendo switch and he's got lots of games on it that he

00:43:26 ◼   ► likes to play. And I, so much of our tech moves so fast and like Nintendo switch, it's still pretty

00:43:32 ◼   ► good. It's still pretty good. Still going. There have been more revisions to the steam deck in the

00:43:38 ◼   ► time. Yes. The steam deck came out what in like 2020, 2021, 2021. And now they've already got a

00:43:47 ◼   ► new one, which is like a big jump. It's a, they could effectively call it the steam deck too,

00:43:50 ◼   ► if they wanted to. But they are a Y and the Nintendo switch is kind of incredible for

00:43:55 ◼   ► people that bought it. Right? Like, well, they got to make up for the, for the, the, the,

00:43:59 ◼   ► what was it? The, I can't even remember. I have one. It was the Wii U. Yeah. They got to make

00:44:05 ◼   ► up for that. And the best part is that when the switch launched in 2017, the Tegra chip that it

00:44:11 ◼   ► has, it was already outdated in 2017. That next switch is going to be a beast. I think. Yeah.

00:44:20 ◼   ► I hope so. I'm I feel pretty confident about it. You also made some predictions about yourself.

00:44:25 ◼   ► Okay. I'm sure 2023. As you were signing off. Yeah. Federico is very busy with many new products,

00:44:32 ◼   ► but I still have Mac stories. Oh, I mean, of course. Never let it go, but you're busy. I don't

00:44:37 ◼   ► think the club was a club around. Yeah, it was. Right. But it's much more now than it was then

00:44:43 ◼   ► with discord and all that. So if you've got more podcasts, there's an entire universe

00:44:48 ◼   ► of Mac stories, podcasts. Uh, I think back then I used to have Twitter, man, that ended badly.

00:44:56 ◼   ► Wow. Yeah, it did. Kind of incredible really. Cause what I like about this prediction is at

00:45:02 ◼   ► that point, like nothing was changing, but it was like, it was always as bad or as good as it was.

00:45:07 ◼   ► And like, it's very interesting that you did foresee a time in which it would die and it did.

00:45:14 ◼   ► And it badly. I mean, badly. Yeah. Also used to have Instagram. Instagram also didn't end nicely.

00:45:21 ◼   ► No, that was, that was wrong. I still have Instagram and it's still going very much strong,

00:45:28 ◼   ► I would say. And I won't give you the name of the new social networks that we're using now.

00:45:32 ◼   ► Yeah. He was, he was, he didn't give us the name, but I know he meant Mastodon.

00:45:41 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, I think my, I created my account in 2018, so I'm sure I was thinking

00:45:47 ◼   ► of Mastodon and I probably, I probably gave you this answer because I couldn't remember

00:45:52 ◼   ► the name Mastodon. I mean, that's probably very true, right? I think I tried to cover it up with

00:46:01 ◼   ► this sort of mystique, but it was just that I couldn't remember the name Mastodon. Um,

00:46:08 ◼   ► yeah. So how did the ghost do? I just did a quick count. I might be incorrect, but it's rough enough.

00:46:16 ◼   ► 19 correct. 15 incorrect. That is pretty good. If you had a, a record like that on the Ricky's,

00:46:23 ◼   ► you'd be unstoppable. Yeah. Yeah. See, my problem is, and when we have this issue with the Ricky's,

00:46:29 ◼   ► historically I get my risky predictions right, but like multiple years after. And so I'm trying

00:46:37 ◼   ► to think of a way to like pre-create my Ricky's and keep it like an archive in Obsidian and use

00:46:45 ◼   ► them sort of like, you got to let them simmer for like a couple of years, like good cheese or like

00:46:49 ◼   ► a good wine. You have an idea now, but you're actually going to use it in 2025. It's like a

00:46:56 ◼   ► message in a bottle kind of thing to yourself. Sorry boys, I'm writing down my Ricky's for the

00:47:02 ◼   ► September 2027 event. I'm too busy. You could do what we do. So we started doing this thing on

00:47:10 ◼   ► upgrade where we do a draft about what the, the every hundred episodes about what life is going

00:47:15 ◼   ► to be like a hundred episodes from now coming up soon, coming to eight. I think we're eight

00:47:19 ◼   ► episodes out from that right now. So yeah. Um, you could do something like that. You, you're

00:47:25 ◼   ► long-term Ricky's put it in the, you know, put in the bottle, do a, do a, do a two year Ricky's,

00:47:30 ◼   ► three year Ricky's. I don't know. You could do it. You could steal that from us if you want.

00:47:33 ◼   ► That's a good idea, Mike. Although it clearly would have advantage Federico. So maybe not.

00:47:39 ◼   ► Federico, I will ask you before I let you go. Do you want to make any predictions for five

00:47:43 ◼   ► years from now? Uh, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, you just stopped me. Just let me, just let me, let me,

00:47:51 ◼   ► let me get in touch with, with my ghost. Okay. Give me a sec. Give me a second.

00:47:58 ◼   ► Right. Federico with pH. Yep. It's hard to say. Hello boys. Hello again. Oh no. Hello. Hello.

00:48:06 ◼   ► How's life in 23? We still got that marzipan going. Yep. Oh yeah.

00:48:13 ◼   ► No, that can be true. Some HDMI. Oh yeah. Full of HDMI over here. So tell us what 2028 is like.

00:48:22 ◼   ► Oh, so we have a new Apple CEO. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, there was a succession plan after all.

00:48:33 ◼   ► And so, yeah, we have a new CEO in 28. Uh, won't give you the name, but it's someone from,

00:48:41 ◼   ► from inside Apple, obviously. They didn't, they didn't bring in, uh, any, any external.

00:48:46 ◼   ► So it's someone that we know in 2023? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's someone you know. Okay.

00:48:52 ◼   ► Um, I don't know what else you want to know. Um, what's going on with the iPad?

00:48:57 ◼   ► With the iPad? Well, they eventually made a foldable one. All right. It took him,

00:49:03 ◼   ► it took him a few years, uh, but they eventually did make, um, uh, they, they made a foldable one.

00:49:10 ◼   ► Um, they re they rethought a few things about the lineup. Okay. Especially in the, you know,

00:49:16 ◼   ► the, that, that, so I think in 2023, you were having the whole thing. Like the iPad lineup is

00:49:22 ◼   ► too confusing. And like, I think people will complain about that. Right. Uh, yeah. That,

00:49:28 ◼   ► that took a while to get fixed, but it did, um, took a lot of blog posts. I remember from back.

00:49:36 ◼   ► How's the vision. It was the vision pro success. Oh, the vision pro was a slow burn. Uh, so,

00:49:44 ◼   ► so it started out as this like very expensive thing. And it took us, it took Apple a long time

00:49:50 ◼   ► to launch an international market and going to the app to the Apple store was a whole thing for the

00:49:56 ◼   ► tryouts and, and, and, you know, and the feeding. Um, and it was so expensive. Um, they did make a

00:50:04 ◼   ► more affordable one, but it wasn't until I believe. So we are now on version, we are now on version,

00:50:10 ◼   ► uh, four of the vision pro and it was really with version three that is started becoming more

00:50:16 ◼   ► popular, um, and much smaller and cheaper and lighter. Uh, yeah. So it, it, it's, it's gonna

00:50:26 ◼   ► be a slow burn for you guys. You're, you're in for quite the ride. Jason, what do you want to

00:50:30 ◼   ► ask the Phantom? Uh, Phantom, how is the progress of Apple Silicon going? Oh, so they did, they,

00:50:42 ◼   ► they, uh, they were serious about gaming after all. Um, I remember, so five years ago, um,

00:50:50 ◼   ► yeah, it's cute because it's when five years ago they were doing like, we have Resident Evil

00:50:56 ◼   ► coming and it's like gaming. Uh, but they were serious about that after all. So they,

00:51:03 ◼   ► they spent, um, so they stayed on the, on the three nanometer technology for a couple of years,

00:51:10 ◼   ► but they really started focusing for, for a while on the GPU aspect of it. And to the point where,

00:51:17 ◼   ► um, the, the sort of triple A gaming initiative got so serious that they had to split the Apple

00:51:24 ◼   ► Arcade tiers that they have. So they have the Apple Arcade, like the base tier for like the more

00:51:30 ◼   ► like casual gaming, but they also redid like a proper, um, a proper gaming section on the

00:51:37 ◼   ► Mac App Store. And you can get in with a more expensive Apple Arcade tier that gets you access

00:51:42 ◼   ► to, uh, to triple A gaming. Does Apple buy Disney? Oh no, they did not. Okay, cool. Good to know. No,

00:51:51 ◼   ► they, they didn't buy, they didn't buy Disney. Uh, after all, uh, they did acquire, um, I think

00:51:58 ◼   ► between after 23 in the, in the time period, 24 to 26, there, it started this consolidation of

00:52:05 ◼   ► streaming services. Um, a lot of these services that launched with the pandemic, they eventually

00:52:11 ◼   ► started folding. Um, they did acquire, I don't remember now the names because it's been a few

00:52:16 ◼   ► years, but they did acquire a couple of, like the rights of a couple of these services that closed

00:52:21 ◼   ► down, like some of the smaller ones, but not Disney, not, not, not, not Netflix. Like those

00:52:26 ◼   ► are still doing their thing. Um, yeah. Jason, do you have anything before we let the Phantom

00:52:32 ◼   ► disappear back into his future realm? Uh, no, I don't, I don't think so. I think that that is,

00:52:39 ◼   ► well, iPhone, is the iPhone still going strong? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. They did, uh, they did change

00:52:47 ◼   ► the, the, the naming scheme at one point. Yeah. Yeah. Because the numbers, they started getting

00:52:54 ◼   ► as big as a Final Fantasy game. It's going to be iPhone double X at some point. I don't know if

00:52:59 ◼   ► anybody needs that. They re they, they renamed it, but it's still called an iPhone and you know how

00:53:05 ◼   ► I have multiple versions. Um, so there's the sort of classic iPhone. There's also the foldables, uh,

00:53:11 ◼   ► this Playtech has really improved over the past five years. And so that's been an interesting

00:53:17 ◼   ► change for sure, but still, there's still an iPhone. There's still an iPad, there's still

00:53:22 ◼   ► max. And we have now this, uh, this, uh, fourth version of the vision pro it's not actually even

00:53:29 ◼   ► called the vision pro anymore. You'll see. Uh, but yeah. Well, we look forward to catching up

00:53:34 ◼   ► with you in your timeline. Sure. All right. All right. Talk to you. Talk to you. Uh,

00:53:41 ◼   ► my past self will talk to you in five years, I guess.

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00:56:19 ◼   ► Let's do some holiday themed ask upgrade questions.

00:56:24 ◼   ► - Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle.

00:56:27 ◼   ► - Just like.

00:56:27 ◼   ► - Oh, I like it. That's really great.

00:56:33 ◼   ► - I don't often do the lasers, but when I do, I bring something.

00:56:37 ◼   ► - That's right. They're red and green lasers too.

00:56:39 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm. Of course. Aaron asks, do you have any favorite holiday decorations from when you're a

00:56:45 ◼   ► kid that you still love and use today? What about ones that you did love, but now find too tacky?

00:56:50 ◼   ► Do you have any?

00:56:50 ◼   ► - You know, I was thinking about this because we bought a bunch of ornaments that are theoretically,

00:56:57 ◼   ► like when our kids were little, that theoretically we will give to our kids at some point to take

00:57:01 ◼   ► away as keepsakes. Although they've become so precious for us, they may be more precious for

00:57:06 ◼   ► us than for our kids. So that's a problem. I don't think I have any ornaments or other things from

00:57:15 ◼   ► when I was a kid. I don't think I have any of them. My mom has some that I, but she's still

00:57:20 ◼   ► got them, right? Like there may come a time, you know, my mom's in her eighties where some of those

00:57:27 ◼   ► will be claimed, reclaimed. But for now I do every now and then there's like a Santa candle and

00:57:33 ◼   ► there's some other stuff that she has on. I'm like, oh wow, that's from, that's from when I was

00:57:37 ◼   ► a kid. But I don't, I don't have anything in particular sort of building, building my own

00:57:42 ◼   ► memories, buying stuff that I love now. We also like our tree was mostly like just glass ball,

00:57:49 ◼   ► you know, green and red glass ball ornaments, not like a lot of custom stuff. We had an angel on the

00:57:55 ◼   ► top of the tree. I have no idea where that angel is. My mom still might still have it. Our tree

00:57:59 ◼   ► this year has Skeletor on the top. So I guess that says something.

00:58:02 ◼   ► Um, I also don't have any from my childhood, but holiday ornaments have become a thing that

00:58:11 ◼   ► me and Adina have started to decide to care about. Like rather than like when we, when we first got a

00:58:16 ◼   ► tree and over the years, like we just bought like boxes of ornaments, right. That were just like,

00:58:21 ◼   ► oh, this is like a nice color or whatever. Like, and we're just going to use this to fill up the

00:58:24 ◼   ► tree. But, and then one year we bought a bunch of really adorable and hilarious felt ones, like,

00:58:30 ◼   ► like dinosaurs and like, but all holiday themed and they were really adorable. And that was like,

00:58:35 ◼   ► oh, this is much more of like who we are and like what we like. Um, and then we have now taken to

00:58:44 ◼   ► attrition that many people have that we've learned from friends of we buy holidays, sorry, we buy

00:58:49 ◼   ► ornaments on vacations and holidays that we go on, like places that we go to that we care about.

00:58:53 ◼   ► We buy, we try and buy an ornament for the tree from them. So we have like been to Disney a bunch

00:58:57 ◼   ► of times. We get a new one from Disney each time. We have one from San Francisco. We have one from

00:59:01 ◼   ► Hawaii. You know, like we try and pick up ornaments from places that we go together.

00:59:06 ◼   ► And that's become like a little tradition in the home.

00:59:08 ◼   ► - It's nice. I will say the, um, the one funny thing here is, so Lauren is Jewish and always was,

00:59:16 ◼   ► um, covetous of, uh, Christmas traditions that she didn't get when she was a kid.

00:59:21 ◼   ► - Amazing. That's funny.

00:59:22 ◼   ► - Um, and, and her, her dad wasn't, uh, Jewish, but, uh, she lived with her mom and her stepdad.

00:59:32 ◼   ► Um, so occasionally they'd get some of that reflected, but not a lot. As a result though,

00:59:36 ◼   ► moving in with me and marrying me gave her full license. And you know, that thing as an adult,

00:59:44 ◼   ► where you're like, this is what we do when you're a kid. And then you're an adult, you're like,

00:59:47 ◼   ► oh, I get to choose whatever we do. So it's like, uh, lights on the house. Yeah, let's do it. Big

00:59:53 ◼   ► tree, lots of ornaments. Yeah, let's do it. Um, so we've got all of that. She also has given

00:59:57 ◼   ► herself permission to buy like as many menorahs as she wants to, um, and do that too. And it's like,

01:00:04 ◼   ► no, I like menorahs. We might have three, uh, going at once. Why not? Like, who's going to

01:00:09 ◼   ► stop me? It's that thing where it's like as an adult, who's going to stop me. Uh, so anyway,

01:00:13 ◼   ► she really takes some, some glee in having, being able to do Christmas as well because there was a

01:00:18 ◼   ► period, like, you know, it's like your parents telling you, you can't have the cereal with sugar

01:00:22 ◼   ► in it. Um, it's a little like that. Then you're an adult and you're like, I'm going to have this

01:00:26 ◼   ► cereal with sugar. Uh, so anyway, that, that adds an extra level of kind of delight for Christmas is

01:00:32 ◼   ► that Lauren really loves it. Drew wants to know what some of our other favorite holiday traditions

01:00:37 ◼   ► are. Oh, wow. So I'll start. I have a couple. Yeah. Okay. Do it. Um, when we put up our tree,

01:00:44 ◼   ► we make eggnog. So like starts the day before, like it's a good eggnog recipe that we use and

01:00:50 ◼   ► we use the binging with Babish eggnog recipe. Um, if you want to find that it's really good. Uh,

01:00:57 ◼   ► we like, it's basically a two day process. You leave it to kind of like mature overnight and

01:01:01 ◼   ► then finish off the next day. So we drink eggnog and put the Christmas tree up. Um,

01:01:06 ◼   ► something that I've come to really love is making gingerbread houses. Uh, and so we'll do a

01:01:11 ◼   ► gingerbread house every year. And I like to do the thing where we get a kit, but we actually make the

01:01:16 ◼   ► gingerbread with the kit. Like you don't just get like pre cut pieces, like you get the whole thing

01:01:22 ◼   ► and then decorate it yourself. And I love doing that. Can I just jump in here for a second? So,

01:01:26 ◼   ► so my kids, uh, we had the gingerbread houses that we made and I have some pictures of my dad making

01:01:31 ◼   ► a gingerbread house with them that I treasure and they, uh, but they would always be like,

01:01:38 ◼   ► when can we eat it? When can we eat it? There's like, can't they're picking a candy off of it?

01:01:42 ◼   ► Cause sometimes there's like icing and there's also candy you can stick on it and they're picking

01:01:45 ◼   ► that off and they're like, when can we eat it? And this led to what has turned out to be a major

01:01:51 ◼   ► traumatic event in my children's life, which is at one point I just decided, Oh, I'm tired of them

01:01:56 ◼   ► asking when can we eat it? So I went out into the garage and got a hammer and I brought it in and I

01:02:02 ◼   ► smashed the gingerbread house. The kids are like, no. And ever since then, it's been, remember when

01:02:08 ◼   ► daddy took the smashed the gingerbread house with a hammer and I'm like, guys, I did it cause you

01:02:12 ◼   ► wanted the gingerbread. This is one of those things where like, you know, it's like, uh,

01:02:18 ◼   ► there were branching paths in your children's lives at that point. And there was one where

01:02:23 ◼   ► you didn't smash the house and one where you did. No, I smashed that gingerbread house. Cause it was

01:02:29 ◼   ► all stuck together pretty tightly and we couldn't get it off. And I thought, you know what? This'll

01:02:31 ◼   ► be fun. I'll just smash it into pieces and then we can eat the pieces. And it became traumatic for

01:02:36 ◼   ► them. So sorry about that, but I do like a gingerbread house. I give it one day. Yeah. So

01:02:42 ◼   ► I will eat the gingerbread house the next day. That's when we'll start picking at it. And right

01:02:45 ◼   ► now we have just a front and back left of the house. Right. Well, if you want to have fun

01:02:51 ◼   ► sometime, bring out the hammer, bring out the hammer. I don't think I've ever made a gingerbread

01:02:56 ◼   ► house that is sturdy enough that it would need a break. I don't know. That could be really easy to

01:03:00 ◼   ► knock it, knock it right over. Yeah. We also do stockings now, which I like to, we have monster

01:03:06 ◼   ► zinc stockings, which are fantastic. One is a Michael Zawski and then one is just like a Sully

01:03:10 ◼   ► foot, which is very great. Lauren still has her childhood Christmas stocking. Wow. Um, which is

01:03:17 ◼   ► green and has a Panda on it and an L for Lauren. Uh, and so, so that's, that's pretty great. And

01:03:24 ◼   ► also like shopping for a stockings. I don't know. That's an interesting, uh, what happened there?

01:03:30 ◼   ► What happened there? Who put a Panda on a stocking? I don't know. That's a good question.

01:03:34 ◼   ► So, uh, I don't think we have any particularly interesting holiday traditions. You know,

01:03:39 ◼   ► there's music like the Vince Giraldi stuff. I've got some playlist, but the Vince Giraldi music

01:03:44 ◼   ► from the Charlie Brown Christmas special and the Charlie Brown Christmas special itself,

01:03:48 ◼   ► uh, that we, we tend to watch a lot. We bought it ages ago on iTunes. So even though it's on

01:03:54 ◼   ► Apple TV plus now, I mean, we were watching that endlessly. Certain movies get replayed.

01:03:59 ◼   ► Uh, Elf is a favorite. Miracle on 34th street is a favorite that we will work some others in there.

01:04:05 ◼   ► Sometimes it's Die Hard too. Sure. Fine. Whatever. Um, but like Elf and Miracle on 34th street,

01:04:11 ◼   ► I feel like are the standards. We'll try to get those in there. The, uh, Doctor Who Christmas

01:04:17 ◼   ► specials. I'll pull some of those out because some of those are really great. Um, some of them are

01:04:21 ◼   ► not, but some of them are actually really great. The Christmas Carol one and the last Christmas,

01:04:25 ◼   ► which is sort of like an homage to the thing, which is why would that be a Christmas special?

01:04:29 ◼   ► But it is, uh, because the thing takes place at the North pole you see and who else might be at

01:04:33 ◼   ► the North pole anyway? Uh, that's pretty good. Um, baking cookies, ginger cookies. Um, I love ginger.

01:04:40 ◼   ► And so I have these ginger cookies that I make that are made with enormous amounts of ginger and

01:04:45 ◼   ► they're so good. And then the ginger molasses cookie is back at blue. Yes. Oh, is it? Well,

01:04:51 ◼   ► that's all about it. Well, Mary in LA, they had it. I was so excited. That's the one I make and,

01:04:57 ◼   ► and it's, and it's really great. Ginger molasses cookie from blue bottle coffee and, um, uh,

01:05:03 ◼   ► Christmas dinner is a, is a tradition, right? Um, usually a Turkey, although sometimes something

01:05:08 ◼   ► else. Um, but the sides are the star there. And I always make a sweet potato pie because I love

01:05:15 ◼   ► to make a sweet potato pie and any excuse to do that. I'll do it. Honestly. Uh, Lauren just made

01:05:20 ◼   ► checks mix yesterday. That's actually a tradition. I think the kids love to have the checks party

01:05:25 ◼   ► mix. We homemade, we make it at home. You gotta buy a lot of Worcestershire sauce for that, but

01:05:30 ◼   ► we do that. I don't know. Nothing. I would say nothing particularly, uh, dramatic. It's just,

01:05:36 ◼   ► I love all those, the trappings of Christmas. It's fun. Oh, uh, for music, I actually went to add in

01:05:43 ◼   ► the, the, uh, David Sparks is you all playlist gets a lot of play in our house. It's like a

01:05:50 ◼   ► really good compilation of good, like background jazz music. That's what I was thinking, which is

01:05:55 ◼   ► like really good for the holidays because you've got people around and we've actually started in

01:05:59 ◼   ► your tradition actually in the last two years, we've done it two times. So it's a tradition. Now,

01:06:03 ◼   ► uh, we, um, last year we went to one neighbors and our neighbors came to us this year. We have a

01:06:09 ◼   ► little, it's the second annual traditional neighbor Christmas neighbor Christmas. Yeah.

01:06:14 ◼   ► Andrew asks holiday sugar cookies, frosted or unfrosted. Oh, um, I could take her leave the

01:06:24 ◼   ► frosting, but the frosting is fun. If you can do fun things with it. Right. So it's like a sugar

01:06:28 ◼   ► cookie and in a shape like of a man and you give them eyes, it's better. So you do that or you,

01:06:34 ◼   ► yeah. I mean, if it's a tree, you put green on that thing. I mean, you got to do that. Um,

01:06:39 ◼   ► it's sad if they don't, I have a bunch of cookie cutters and that's the only time we ever use them

01:06:43 ◼   ► as for holiday cookies. And, and some of those actually are my mom's cookie cutters from when

01:06:48 ◼   ► I was a kid. Um, and then we picked up some others since then. And so, yeah, you do a candy cane.

01:06:52 ◼   ► You're not going to Stripe that. It's just a J like, or a question mark that's backward. Like

01:06:59 ◼   ► you gotta, you gotta Stripe that thing. Stripe that baby. Otherwise, what are you doing? Take

01:07:04 ◼   ► it from upgrade Stripe the baby. No, no. You know what I mean? I know. I love it. It's great. This

01:07:10 ◼   ► is a good, this is a good motto for the show. Frost them. This is what you need to do. You know,

01:07:15 ◼   ► that's, so that's my feeling about Andrew's point about frosted or unfrosted. The frosting's fine.

01:07:19 ◼   ► I don't care. I feel like though, the key thing is if they're in shapes and they need to be

01:07:24 ◼   ► elaborated on so that they aren't just sad, plain cookies. If it's like a circle, I mean, you can

01:07:29 ◼   ► take it or leave it, whatever. But if it's like in a shape you gotta do, you gotta do festive things

01:07:34 ◼   ► on that shape. Otherwise it's just a sad silhouette and nobody wants their Christmas sugar cookie to

01:07:39 ◼   ► be a sad silhouette. And Brontz wants to know, did you both grow up believing in Santa in your

01:07:46 ◼   ► households? Yes, absolutely. My belief was reinforced by the time that Santa responded

01:07:53 ◼   ► to a letter I left for Santa and a handwriting I didn't recognize, which I think was just,

01:07:58 ◼   ► I don't actually know which parent, probably my mom, but it was like, she did a wild handwriting

01:08:04 ◼   ► that it was not like my parents' handwriting. So it was very, very convincing. And that extended

01:08:09 ◼   ► it a year. I was very impressed with that, that Santa had left me a message. And then the other

01:08:15 ◼   ► thing I'll say is there was that awkward couple of years where I knew that Santa didn't exist,

01:08:20 ◼   ► but I didn't want to lose Santa presents. So we kind of pretended that it was until finally

01:08:26 ◼   ► we had the moment of, you know, there's no Santa, right? And I'm like, yeah, I know. And then

01:08:31 ◼   ► actually my mom would still put presents under the tree that were from Santa and we would all be

01:08:35 ◼   ► like, oh, this one's from Santa. And we all had a chuckle. But that's cute, right? That's good.

01:08:40 ◼   ► That's my story. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much. What about you? You didn't answer. You didn't

01:08:45 ◼   ► answer. Well, maybe I don't want to answer, you know, maybe I still believe in Santa. No,

01:08:48 ◼   ► he's one of these things, well, I know I did, but I don't remember it, but I know I did.

01:08:53 ◼   ► You know what I mean? Like I have no memory of believing in Santa, but I know I believed in Santa.

01:08:58 ◼   ► Sure. We had a fireplace and our tree was right next to the fireplace too. So it was really

01:09:04 ◼   ► conducive to that whole thing. I remember doing the cookies and milk and carrots and stuff like

01:09:12 ◼   ► that. So my pal, my pal, Phillip Michaels, I don't know. I just find this amazing. Their daughter,

01:09:19 ◼   ► old enough now to know that there's no Santa, but for a while there, he just was very clear that

01:09:24 ◼   ► what Santa really wants is bourbon. I always appreciated that, that in Phil's house, you leave

01:09:31 ◼   ► you leave bourbon for Santa. Makes sense. Story checks out. Santa likes to go to the Michaels

01:09:36 ◼   ► household. Yeah, he does. Good gifts. If you would like to send in feedback, follow up and questions

01:09:44 ◼   ► for a future episode, please go to upgradefeedback.com. You can find Jason at sixcolors.com,

01:09:49 ◼   ► the incomparable.com and here on relay FM, where you'll find me too. And over at cortexbrand.com

01:09:55 ◼   ► we're on Mastodon. Jason is at J Snell on zeppelin.flights. I am at iMike on mike.social.

01:10:01 ◼   ► You can find the show as upgrade on relay FM.social where you'll also find video clips of the

01:10:06 ◼   ► show, but they are best viewed on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. We are at upgrade relay on all of

01:10:11 ◼   ► those. On threads, I am at iMike, I M Y K E. Jason is at J Snell, J S N E double L. Thank you to our

01:10:18 ◼   ► members who support us about upgrade plus, and thank you to our sponsors of this episode, Notion,

01:10:22 ◼   ► Ladder and Fitbud. However you celebrate, have a happy holidays and we'll be back next year on

01:10:29 ◼   ► new year's day. A very special episode. Very special episode. Join us. That's right. Happy

01:10:35 ◼   ► holidays, happy new year. See you in the future. See you next year everyone.

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