00:00:29 ◼ ► I mean, we're recording this an hour earlier than usual because of the cruel tyranny of time,
00:01:10 ◼ ► I do not only tag close friends and family, nor do I give a name to everyone it detects.
00:01:32 ◼ ► and they don't get tagged unless it's very obviously like a friend my kids had for a long time,
00:01:42 ◼ ► For example, I've been inconsistent with famous people because I'm looking at my photos library here.
00:02:06 ◼ ► I think I have Steve Jobs and Tim Cook in my people, because I have pictures of Steve Jobs and Tim Cook.
00:02:42 ◼ ► Yeah, okay. I think you fall closer to the second category, where I am in the first category,
00:03:02 ◼ ► And I actually also did find out in preparing for this, I didn't know that it was called People and Pets now,
00:03:14 ◼ ► And in fact, as I just put it into our Discord, I have pets there, including not my own pets.
00:03:19 ◼ ► Romeo, the adorable friend of the show, who is occasionally walking across the rooftop next to me as I record.
00:03:27 ◼ ► He has his own entry, where I've snapped various shots of Romeo doing his thing, adventuring around my neighborhood.
00:03:39 ◼ ► I wonder, actually, I don't know the answer to this. If you don't tag pets, does it just say people?
00:03:50 ◼ ► If you have no photos of animals at all in your photo library, I don't know what happens then.
00:04:02 ◼ ► If you have no animals, does it say just people? Or maybe I'll say just the first person write that in.
00:04:08 ◼ ► If you don't think you're the first person, don't write in, because otherwise I'll be digging through a lot of follow-up.
00:04:12 ◼ ► Or just don't write in at all. Thank you so much to Christian for sending that question.
00:04:16 ◼ ► If you would like to help us open an episode of the show, just send in a Snell Talk question.
00:04:21 ◼ ► We're going to UpgradeFeedback.com. It can be about anything you like. You help us open an episode.
00:04:27 ◼ ► Couple of items of follow-up. We are recording the day after the Oscars. Did you watch the Oscars, Jason?
00:04:39 ◼ ► Apple won zero, even though Killers of the Flower Moon was up for a lot, and that's an Apple movie.
00:04:49 ◼ ► I think Lily Gladstone was their best chance, and she was one of the favorites for the Best Actress award.
00:04:55 ◼ ► But it sounded like kind of a toss-up between her and Emma Stone, and Emma Stone won that one.
00:05:30 ◼ ► And I recommend everybody watches this. Ryan Gosling just going all out with his performance of I'm Just Ken,
00:05:41 ◼ ► The amount of effort he put into this from a performance perspective, I was very impressed.
00:05:58 ◼ ► But this? Yeah, I didn't really like it. I thought he was outshined, charisma-wise, by other Kens.
00:06:05 ◼ ► And I was like, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe don't put Sima Liu so close to Ryan Gosling.
00:06:14 ◼ ► And my other high point of the whole thing was when Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger came out,
00:06:19 ◼ ► and you thought they were going to do a twins joke. And they're like, "Well, you know why we're here.
00:06:26 ◼ ► And it's Michael Keaton in the audience, and he's giving him the steely glare of Batman.
00:06:33 ◼ ► He's still giving him the steely glare and some nods and some "I'm going to get yous" hand gestures.
00:07:06 ◼ ► I actually liked the... They had five former winners come out and speak directly to the five nominees
00:07:36 ◼ ► Oh, yeah, John Mulaney doing his whole getting off track with Field of Dreams plot thread questions
00:07:46 ◼ ► There are rumors about this, and I hope it's true, that Mulaney might be the next Oscars host
00:08:09 ◼ ► He's perfect for that job. Yeah, some of his jokes were silly and some of his jokes were dad jokes,
00:08:20 ◼ ► that this is important for the nominees. ABC does the Oscars. He's a talk show host on ABC,
00:08:34 ◼ ► and would be a very interesting choice. But also in my mind, Kimmel and this year's producers
00:08:54 ◼ ► So Oppenheimer won them all. I have a point, but I could just go back to the Kimmel part.
00:08:59 ◼ ► The one part of it I did not like the jokes about Robert Downey Jr. I didn't think that
00:09:17 ◼ ► Hollywood perspective of that he was unemployable, and then he's come all the way back to this.
00:09:39 ◼ ► Well, they started to riff on it, and it was a bit, like I said, I think it went on too far.
00:09:47 ◼ ► And then you move on and it dwelt on. There were a few bits like that where I was like,
00:09:59 ◼ ► Then about Oppenheimer, we were watching it this morning, and Eddie turned to me and she was like,
00:10:09 ◼ ► which is like, I feel like it's a rare thing. I feel like for a long time, we've watched
00:10:16 ◼ ► the best picture after it won best picture because it won best picture. But like, it's rare that like
00:10:23 ◼ ► there was the movie that I chose to see because I wanted to see it ended up being the best picture.
00:10:31 ◼ ► DMA today time, everybody's favorite segment. This is actually DMA related today. It's not
00:10:46 ◼ ► and reinstated Epic's developer account in Sweden again. So I'm going to try and bridge all of this.
00:10:55 ◼ ► It started with an exchange of emails between Phil Schiller and Tim Sweeney about getting assertions
00:11:01 ◼ ► that Epic would follow the rules again, and not like break rules like they did last time.
00:11:06 ◼ ► Then Apple removed Epic's account again, in part because of public criticisms that Sweeney posted
00:11:13 ◼ ► on X about Apple's response to the DMA, which is a wild thing for Phil Schiller to put in writing.
00:11:19 ◼ ► Just like, I don't know what he's doing. Then the EU commission, I think quite rightly,
00:11:26 ◼ ► started asking questions about this. Then Apple reinstated them again. This is a stupid,
00:11:32 ◼ ► petty mess to add on top of all of the other stupid messes that they're trying to deal with
00:11:37 ◼ ► right now. This is absolutely superfluous, unnecessary, benefited nobody. I do not know
00:11:43 ◼ ► why this happened. Yeah, it was after the, I would say, basically a PR own goal of them putting down
00:11:50 ◼ ► in their little letter about how they essentially view the app store as a gift to everybody else,
00:11:55 ◼ ► and that Spotify built a whole big successful business on Apple, giving it to them for free.
00:12:02 ◼ ► Which at the time, I think I said this last week, I thought, "Well, doesn't that make you look kind
00:12:07 ◼ ► of dumb that that was your business model that you stuck with?" Also, it just gets to the whole idea
00:12:12 ◼ ► of Apple's attitude toward other people being involved in their platforms as being that Apple
00:12:17 ◼ ► creates the value and they sort of suck the value away, which is not true. It's much more symbiotic
00:12:29 ◼ ► which is, and also I gotta say a little bit baffling, and this is the thing is I thought
00:12:36 ◼ ► when I saw that letter from Phil Schiller basically saying, "Hey, Tim, you know, reassure me you're not
00:12:43 ◼ ► going to break the rules again." And his response was, "I absolutely reassure you we will not break
00:12:49 ◼ ► the rules again, and I will provide anything you want in writing to say that." The result was then
00:12:57 ◼ ► that Apple then banned them and said they did it because they were mean to Apple, they dared to
00:13:03 ◼ ► criticize Apple publicly. It's like, "Well, wait a second. Feelty to Apple is not in the App Store
00:13:10 ◼ ► rules, right? Omerta, right? Silence and do not talk about Apple and your relationship with Apple
00:13:18 ◼ ► is not in the App Store rules, nor would it be legal for it to be there, especially in Europe."
00:13:24 ◼ ► And so for them to do that, it shows you how petty and vindictive people at Apple can be. And
00:13:31 ◼ ► it's a bad look when you're an incredibly powerful company. It's understandable to a certain extent
00:13:37 ◼ ► when you're fighting for your life, which is I think why that attitude got ingrained in Apple.
00:13:42 ◼ ► It was in the early Steve Jobs return era, and they were fighting for their lives. But I will say
00:13:46 ◼ ► also I think it's just a Steve Jobs trait that has transferred to the company, as he's always
00:13:50 ◼ ► felt like he did. He always felt like he did great works and everybody else made money off of it,
00:13:55 ◼ ► and he felt like they were all just kind of leeching off of his greatness. And just bottom
00:13:59 ◼ ► line, I've seen it. It happened in the relationship with Macworld and Macworld Expo. It's just a fact.
00:14:04 ◼ ► And then I see it here and I think, "Oh yeah." And let's be clear, I'm just going to be honest.
00:14:09 ◼ ► Look, I've worked with a lot of great people at Apple over the years, but I've seen this firsthand
00:14:16 ◼ ► that if you do stuff Apple doesn't like, they won't say so necessarily, but they'll punish you.
00:14:23 ◼ ► They'll punish you. They'll forget you on the next round of review units or whatever. It has
00:14:31 ◼ ► happened to me multiple times, to people I know multiple times. And in this, I was getting the
00:14:37 ◼ ► flashbacks, which is it's like, "Oh, we're going to..." Phil Schiller assures Sweeney that if he
00:14:46 ◼ ► gives him his word, basically, they'll let them back in, probably knowing that the European
00:14:58 ◼ ► I find him unpleasant and he has a real attitude. And his response to Phil is like, "Yes, Phil,
00:15:06 ◼ ► anything. I assure you, and we will provide anything you want." And then they're also doing
00:15:12 ◼ ► their public publicity campaign against Apple's policies. And that's what gets you kicked out,
00:15:20 ◼ ► is daring to speak your dissent to the powerful gatekeeper. Well, that's certainly not going to
00:15:27 ◼ ► play well in the regulatory environment where they're trying to shut down powerful gatekeepers.
00:15:33 ◼ ► But I found the whole thing telling and offensive. And I feel like Apple's relationship with
00:15:49 ◼ ► Really, Phil fixed a lot of things that were wrong with the App Store when he came back.
00:15:57 ◼ ► Because remember, Eddie was in charge of this, and I think didn't really care about it. And Phil
00:16:01 ◼ ► Schiller came in, took it over. And if you think relationships with Apple and developers are bad
00:16:06 ◼ ► now, you should have seen it back then. The number of arbitrary rejections and some of the rules,
00:16:13 ◼ ► a lot of things changed for the better. At this point, though, when I look at stuff like this,
00:16:18 ◼ ► I feel like there needs to be some new blood in this relationship. Almost politically, you need to
00:16:23 ◼ ► sort of say, "No, we're going to put somebody new in charge of this stuff, and they're going to be
00:16:27 ◼ ► able to sort of say, "Okay, we're going to reset, and we're going to change the rules a little bit,
00:16:31 ◼ ► and we're going to..." It's not going to be like it was. Because this is so poisonous that I'm
00:16:36 ◼ ► not sure how Phil Schiller can represent Apple in this stuff. And that's not to say that he
00:16:43 ◼ ► hasn't done some good stuff and isn't a really smart guy, but I feel like this can't continue
00:16:50 ◼ ► like this. It's different people for different phases, right? Eddie was good for getting it set
00:16:55 ◼ ► up. Phil has been good for building it up to this powerhouse that it is and giving more options to
00:17:00 ◼ ► developers for how they make money and this kind of stuff. But maybe there is a new mindset needed
00:17:07 ◼ ► for the regulation era of the App Store. Quite frankly, it's a long email that Phil wrote to Tim,
00:17:15 ◼ ► where essentially it boils down to the fact that you broke the rules in the past, and your
00:17:21 ◼ ► criticism is why we're not letting you in. And so really what it means is it's the criticism.
00:17:26 ◼ ► It's the criticism. They reinstated the account knowing full well what they'd done in the past.
00:17:31 ◼ ► So the only thing that had changed is Tim Sweeney was tweeting about it. And that is an
00:17:37 ◼ ► absolutely unacceptable reason to deny anyone to be in the App Store, let alone one of the biggest
00:17:45 ◼ ► game makers in the world, probably the biggest game maker in the world, which should be on the
00:17:49 ◼ ► platform. Why do you think I have anonymous people who do the Apple report card every year?
00:17:53 ◼ ► Honestly, this is the thing is if you want things out of Apple, I mean, it's not necessarily if I'm
00:18:00 ◼ ► on the record criticizing Apple, Apple's going to pull me from the App Store, my perfectly fine app,
00:18:05 ◼ ► but it does mean like, "Oh, now I'm not going to get help with my app," or "Now I'm not going to
00:18:09 ◼ ► get my app featured in the App Store," or whatever. Now my icon is never going to appear on a slide at
00:18:16 ◼ ► WWDC. It's petty stuff like that. That absolutely happens. So that's the problem here. And that's
00:18:23 ◼ ► why I think there needs to be a reset. And I don't know what it's going to take. What's it going to
00:18:28 ◼ ► take? Is this what it's going to take? Is it a $2 billion fine that it's going to take? Is it going
00:18:33 ◼ ► to be a future fine that's even larger from the EC than what it's going to take? The 10% of the
00:18:37 ◼ ► overall company turnover. Those are the fines that are on the line for the DMA. So I don't know what
00:18:45 ◼ ► it's going to take, but I know we've talked about this a lot in the past, but like now there's even
00:18:49 ◼ ► more teeth to it. Like Apple's not playing the game it thinks it's playing. It's not playing the
00:18:56 ◼ ► game it was playing five years ago, certainly not 10 years ago or 15 years ago. And yet it's acting
00:19:03 ◼ ► like it is. It's acting like it's an upstart that's just trying to make it and figuring things out.
00:19:10 ◼ ► And it's like it's 2009 and it's not. It's 2024. You're a giant. You're making huge amounts of
00:19:17 ◼ ► money and acting in a way that is like, you know, that is imperious and dangerous and arrogant and
00:19:31 ◼ ► which is everybody. And again, just to be clear about this, the whole DMA and the whole EC thing,
00:19:39 ◼ ► the whole idea there, the concept behind it is that there are certain gatekeepers so powerful
00:19:44 ◼ ► that they exert an undue amount of power over everybody. And so it's bad for businesses and
00:19:51 ◼ ► consumers. Nothing reinforces that than trying to rule by fear, which is effectively what Apple
00:20:00 ◼ ► has been and continues to do. And there there's no better example than this of literally do not
00:20:07 ◼ ► criticize us or we will make your business break. This is the best example. Like, I can't recall
00:20:14 ◼ ► ever seeing in writing an Apple executive telling a developer we are not going to allow you in the
00:20:24 ◼ ► app store because you were mean. And it is wild to me. Yeah, because you disagree with us about our
00:20:31 ◼ ► business and you said it out loud. You can disagree with us all you like as long as you never
00:20:35 ◼ ► tell anybody and act like you like it. That's the policy. It's wild of all the times to do this.
00:20:43 ◼ ► That's why I made that comment about writing it down. The fact that this is written down is like,
00:20:55 ◼ ► this is this is entirely consistent. Anyone who wants to tell me that this is an aberration and
00:20:59 ◼ ► it's because it's Tim Sweeney and all of that and that Apple doesn't normally act this way,
00:21:03 ◼ ► talk to someone who knows better because talk to a developer who's had a run-in with Apple,
00:21:09 ◼ ► talk to somebody in the press who's had a run-in with Apple. This is how Apple has operated for
00:21:14 ◼ ► more than a decade, for at least 15 years, probably more like 20 years, 25 years, I don't
00:21:19 ◼ ► know, pretty close to as long as I've been doing this. They play hardball. And like I said, it was
00:21:29 ◼ ► never fun, but they are so powerful now. And this is the result. It's not necessary. It is not
00:21:38 ◼ ► necessary. I firmly believe that Apple can compete on its own merits. And that's the part that really
00:21:45 ◼ ► bugs me about all of this. And again, I don't know if it's just the why should we change the
00:21:50 ◼ ► thing that we've done that's been so successful, whether there's some arrogance attached to that.
00:21:53 ◼ ► I mean, I think there is, but I think that there must be an underlying fear going on here as well,
00:22:12 ◼ ► what do you think is going to happen? I think Apple would do well, but I guess their attitude
00:22:20 ◼ ► is why find out? It's just the worst. Why find out? If we own the refs, I mean, we've got a
00:22:29 ◼ ► good team. We've got a really good team. We probably got the best team, but we also own the
00:22:33 ◼ ► refs and the stadium and the field. So why should we even risk it? We've got to buy. This is a win.
00:22:40 ◼ ► The Washington generals might show up, but that's going to be it. We are going to own it. And that's
00:22:49 ◼ ► the part that drives me crazy, is that I think that they can... Not only do I think that they
00:22:52 ◼ ► could succeed on the merits, it would actually force them to make an effort in some places maybe
00:22:57 ◼ ► where they don't make an effort, and that would make it better for developers and better for users,
00:23:01 ◼ ► but instead we're left with this sort of naked bullying that's happening, and it's outrageous.
00:23:06 ◼ ► And again, I don't like Epic particularly, and I don't like Tim Sweeney particularly, but boy,
00:23:12 ◼ ► he managed to get some real clarity about Apple's behavior toward developers with this.
00:23:22 ◼ ► but at least we clearly both really care about this, right? And I think, yeah, but for me,
00:23:27 ◼ ► I feel like I'm seeing a lot online of like anti-Europe sentiment about this whole thing
00:23:33 ◼ ► happening, but for me, this is why it's happening. Because without the European commission,
00:23:49 ◼ ► done. And because that was what they decided. Like the last 15 years, literally what you're
00:23:54 ◼ ► describing is the last 15 years, where if you get on Apple's bad side, if you don't do what they
00:23:58 ◼ ► want, you're out. That's it. There's no judge. And they only changed this decision because the
00:24:04 ◼ ► European commission told them to. And so they did it. So this is why we need it. Someone has
00:24:11 ◼ ► to change this and it's Europe. I think that there are reasonable criticisms of governments
00:24:17 ◼ ► trying to get results through legislation that don't necessarily get the results that they want.
00:24:22 ◼ ► But I think this is a really good example of what happens when oversight is added to a process where
00:24:27 ◼ ► there was none. In very simple terms, there was no oversight and now there is actual oversight.
00:24:33 ◼ ► And that's the only reason that this whole thing happened and that Epic Sweden has its account back.
00:24:38 ◼ ► I would prefer for it not to be a government too, but we've been asking for years for Apple to do
00:24:46 ◼ ► something about this and they've decided not to. We've talked about this a lot. We live in an era,
00:24:50 ◼ ► we were talking about this in terms of Tim Cook and China at one point, right? We live in an era
00:24:54 ◼ ► where, when I was a kid, I used to read science fiction about the future. The future where
00:24:59 ◼ ► corporations were more powerful than governments. We live in the present where corporations are
00:25:04 ◼ ► more powerful than most world governments and as powerful as many other world governments.
00:25:09 ◼ ► And this is a case where, who is going to solve this issue anywhere? And the answer is,
00:25:15 ◼ ► the entire European Union can take on Apple. That's what it takes. Maybe South Korea a little
00:25:25 ◼ ► bit, the Netherlands a little bit, takes government actors. And I'm not saying that governments are
00:25:28 ◼ ► the best use of this, but who else is there? Who is as powerful and can make these companies
00:25:34 ◼ ► do what they want? There's nobody else. They are so powerful and they have such a stronghold
00:25:39 ◼ ► on parts of our world that it's necessary. We have another item in DMA Today, by the way,
00:25:45 ◼ ► but I think it is all of the same thing, which is criticism of some of Apple's policies that leads
00:25:53 ◼ ► to changes in policies that I'm skeptical would ever have been made otherwise. Because again,
00:25:58 ◼ ► there's a hammer now with the EC. Because I guess it is worth noting, I should have mentioned this
00:26:04 ◼ ► at the top, the DMA is now in effect. Yes. In between the last two episodes. Happy DMA Day to
00:26:09 ◼ ► all who celebrate. It's happened now. And this is why I think the epic thing could be changed,
00:26:16 ◼ ► because well now there were the rules. The rules are in place and so everybody has to get in line.
00:26:24 ◼ ► Apple before releasing 17.4 and because the DMA was going into effect of 17.4, they made some
00:26:32 ◼ ► tweaks to the new business terms that developers can opt into. So this is everything about the
00:26:37 ◼ ► core technology fee and all that kind of stuff. It's the new business terms. So they made three
00:26:41 ◼ ► changes. Previously, if you wanted to opt in with any app that an entire business would own,
00:26:47 ◼ ► it would opt in every associated developer account you may have in your business. But you can now do
00:26:52 ◼ ► this on a per account business, not a corporation business. So if you had some large company and it
00:26:57 ◼ ► had multiple developer accounts and multiple apps, if you did app A, apps B and C would also need to
00:27:03 ◼ ► go into the new business terms. But now you don't need to do that. You can do it on a per account
00:27:09 ◼ ► basis. You are now allowed to switch back from the new business terms to the old ones. One time,
00:27:21 ◼ ► turning back. Now you can come back one time, which realistically means you can go back and forward
00:27:30 ◼ ► technical reason for this. No, if you can come back, this means this is just what Apple wants
00:27:34 ◼ ► you to do, but you're allowed to go there. And if you've made a big mistake, you can go back
00:27:53 ◼ ► There is now a second way that you can do this. So if you can't provide the line of credit,
00:28:06 ◼ ► for more than two years" and have an app that has had more than 1 million installs in a year
00:28:13 ◼ ► in the European Union. These are the new terms. No changes on the core technology fee, though,
00:28:24 ◼ ► and I would imagine SetApp as well. It would be helpful for them, right? That they may now not
00:28:30 ◼ ► have to provide the line of credit. However, if those are two apps that we know had already said
00:28:35 ◼ ► they were doing it, so they must have been able to get that. But now maybe they don't need to.
00:28:39 ◼ ► Although, again, it may help them out there. And I do wonder if this is somebody going to the EC,
00:28:43 ◼ ► or whether this is feedback to Apple, or how exactly this pathway works to get this stuff.
00:28:55 ◼ ► all right, that doesn't hurt us. That's fine." I could imagine that there is a developer that
00:29:01 ◼ ► Apple would quite like to have an app marketplace, or it would be beneficial to them if they had one,
00:29:09 ◼ ► too, right? Because it used to be that it was everywhere, and now it's sort of like it could be
00:29:13 ◼ ► in a sub-account. I actually wonder what this means for something like Facebook, right? Like,
00:29:21 ◼ ► could you end up with Facebook Europe having a Facebook app store, just for Facebook Europe,
00:29:27 ◼ ► that's separate from the blue Facebook account, and all of those, and that Facebook Europe would
00:29:35 ◼ ► be under the terms for their new app store, but they wouldn't be paying per install for
00:29:39 ◼ ► the blue app that was in the app store, but was coming from a different Facebook corporate account.
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00:30:53 ◼ ► these Factor meals are still in hot demand in the snow house for lunchtime. Well, we haven't gotten
00:30:59 ◼ ► a box in a little while, but the last time we got a box like three or four weeks ago, yeah, that was
00:31:03 ◼ ► the story, is that Lauren goes to work every day, unlike me, and she needs lunch every day. I mean,
00:31:10 ◼ ► I do too, but I have a whole refrigerator of food that I own, and so she would just take the meals
00:31:14 ◼ ► away because they passed her test. We've gotten a few boxes from Factor, and I mean, I really don't
00:31:19 ◼ ► think there's a better... We get podcast stuff, right? Some of us are like, "Well, that's nice,
00:31:23 ◼ ► dear," and the Factor meals were like, "I want that. I want that. I want that. Give me that.
00:31:30 ◼ ► Give me that. Give me that," and so I had one of them, I think. She took them all, so don't listen
00:31:37 ◼ ► to me. Listen to Lauren. They taste good. They don't taste like weird microwave, and the ones
00:31:46 ◼ ► with chicken, where Lauren has specifically said to me, "I do not like reheating chicken in the
00:31:50 ◼ ► microwave," but guess what? The Factor meal she took had chicken, and she reheated them,
00:31:55 ◼ ► and they were great because I've had them too, and they are really, really good. The ingredients
00:31:59 ◼ ► are quality. It's not like you're getting this weird TV dinner of salty stuff that doesn't look
00:32:06 ◼ ► quite right, and it's just not like that. It is remarkable. I can't say this enough, how good the
00:32:14 ◼ ► ingredients are, and you don't realize how low your expectations are for a cold, microwavable
00:32:20 ◼ ► lunch until you have Factor, and you're like, "Oh, it turns out the bar was lower than I thought,"
00:32:27 ◼ ► because this is good. It helps you see in color. It's all black and white. You set it low, and
00:32:32 ◼ ► you're like, "It's edible. I didn't die," and then you have a Factor meal, and you're like, "Oh,
00:32:37 ◼ ► those were not any good, were they? They weren't. They were very bad," so it'll ruin you for other
00:32:43 ◼ ► meals. But that's fine because you can get 50% off. Factor is available. Yeah, that's right.
00:32:48 ◼ ► factormeals.com/upgrade50 and the code UPGRADE50, and you'll get 50% off. That is the code UPGRADE50
00:32:55 ◼ ► at factormeals.com/upgrade50, and you'll get yourself 50% off our thanks to Factor for the
00:33:09 ◼ ► VisionOS 1.1 is now available and brings of it. This is the first major update to VisionOS since
00:33:20 ◼ ► it was released, and it comes with it. I guess the headlining feature is new personas. Have you
00:33:27 ◼ ► set up a new persona for yourself? I have. I set up a new persona in 1.1. It looks better.
00:33:33 ◼ ► It looks better. It looks more like me. It looks a little bit better. I can't really even quantify
00:33:38 ◼ ► it other than to say I think the expressions. Also, they have the new capture. There's a new
00:33:42 ◼ ► accessibility capture, which I used, which allows you to capture your face without holding it up.
00:33:48 ◼ ► You can put it on an eye-level surface, which is really nice because then you're capturing me while
00:33:54 ◼ ► I'm gripping a thing in front of my face, and I feel like my facial expressions and my arms and
00:34:03 ◼ ► everything is a little more relaxed when I'm not holding that thing and trying to get it to point
00:34:09 ◼ ► right at me. So yeah, better capture and better capture process. I had to do mine three times,
00:34:16 ◼ ► though, because the first two times I did it, my eyes were looking in different directions.
00:34:22 ◼ ► That's not a thing that I have, but that was happening, but I fixed it. What I would say,
00:34:37 ◼ ► I think that is a key difference that I'm seeing. I think it was better too. I think the variation
00:34:45 ◼ ► on the face of the skin tone was better, and they say that among the things that's better is skin
00:34:50 ◼ ► tone and makeup too. I think that they're maybe doing a little more attentiveness to some details
00:34:57 ◼ ► on faces that maybe got a pass in the 1.0 personas. My mouse still doesn't move, though.
00:35:09 ◼ ► which I guess is happening, there's MDM now, so these can be managed devices. A bunch of stuff
00:35:14 ◼ ► that's in the iPhone and the iPad that they're like, "Nope, not for 1.0. Nope." And so that and
00:35:19 ◼ ► the iMessage contact key verification is in there now. For something that they have not added that
00:35:25 ◼ ► is driving me mad, no profiles in Safari. No profiles in Safari. So I can't get my tabs
00:35:32 ◼ ► hidden away from me in my other profiles. I have already followed the feedback on that. I was a
00:35:39 ◼ ► good boy, but I haven't gotten that. It's weird. They're syncing up features, but not all the
00:35:44 ◼ ► features have made it, which is kind of funny. I wonder if they're like, "How do we do that
00:35:47 ◼ ► interface?" Anyway, because the tabs are kind of weird in Safari anyway. Mac Virtual Display is
00:35:53 ◼ ► supposedly improved. I haven't really noticed, but I've heard people say that it is more stable and
00:35:57 ◼ ► clearer than it was, which is nice. This is the new Safari Phil Snappier, right? I'm sure it's
00:36:05 ◼ ► clearer now. I'm sure it's clearer. Captive Wi-Fi network, so if you're in a hotel or something or
00:36:09 ◼ ► in an office building somewhere and you have to log in and agree to their terms. I reported that
00:36:15 ◼ ► to Apple where, I think I said this in the show, where I couldn't, when I was trying to do the
00:36:18 ◼ ► setup, I couldn't connect to the Wi-Fi network because I needed to do the capture portal. But
00:36:30 ◼ ► Wi-Fi. That was how I got it set up. And that's how you got in. That's right. The context there,
00:36:35 ◼ ► you talked about the Wi-Fi and then your helpful wife, Adina, and I almost read that as Wi-Fi.
00:36:40 ◼ ► My Wi-Fi, Adina. Wi-Fi, Adina. Yeah, Wi-Fi, Adina. We'll just run it right in there. Amazing.
00:36:45 ◼ ► And those environments still say "coming soon" too, which I love. I love that. Soon is not yet.
00:36:51 ◼ ► Virtual keyboard is supposed to be better. I haven't seen that it's better. It's still awful.
00:36:56 ◼ ► And you can delete apps from the home view now. Yay! Apple's apps. Yeah, you can take Apple's
00:37:03 ◼ ► apps out. I immediately got rid of mail. Goodbye mail, I don't want you. No, I use mail. That's
00:37:10 ◼ ► one of the ones I use, which is kind of weird. I use Spark. Goodbye mail. But anyway, it's nice
00:37:16 ◼ ► to see that there's an update, that it actually has some things in it. I don't know how many
00:37:20 ◼ ► more of these are in the line before they just are entirely focused on 2.0, but I would hope
00:37:24 ◼ ► that they're going to keep going with the things that are like the real pain points to get us
00:37:28 ◼ ► through. Because again, 2.0, while we might see a beta of it in June, will not ship until September.
00:37:40 ◼ ► brave. And I mean, there is an argument that if you're brave enough to be on the Vision Pro,
00:37:44 ◼ ► you can be brave enough to be on the developer beta, but I don't think that's fair. I think
00:37:48 ◼ ► you need to keep pushing the 1.0 features forward a little bit further too. I agree too.
00:37:54 ◼ ► One of the things that I mentioned previously is I was, you know, because the window management
00:37:59 ◼ ► is a problem. Like if the device turns off, which my device loves to turn off like every day,
00:38:08 ◼ ► make a shortcut to at least open the apps that I use a lot and then I can move them where I want
00:38:12 ◼ ► them. But the open app shortcut action would just open an app and then close it and then open the
00:38:18 ◼ ► next app and then close it. Federico found that that has now been fixed. So the open app shortcut
00:38:23 ◼ ► works as you would imagine, where it will just open a bunch of apps and stack them on top of
00:38:27 ◼ ► each other, but then you can move them around. So now you could build a shortcut to open your
00:38:32 ◼ ► favorite apps and then you could just move them where you need them to be. That is at least an
00:38:39 ◼ ► improvement that they fixed that and I'm pleased that they did. I mean clearly everybody who has
00:38:44 ◼ ► written about or talked about VisionOS has talked about how window management is, I mean,
00:38:51 ◼ ► I would say it's a work in progress, but that's not fair because it's not. It's like there needs
00:38:57 ◼ ► to be some because right now window management is literally there are windows. You can move them
00:39:01 ◼ ► around. You can open them and close them. Good luck, which is okay as a start, but like yes,
00:39:06 ◼ ► it would be really nice if you could save a workspace. You could save a set of windows.
00:39:10 ◼ ► Have you been in this position where you've lost a window? You know the app is running,
00:39:17 ◼ ► but you can't find the window and you can hold the crown down to bring it to the front,
00:39:21 ◼ ► but it brings all of them to the front and then you have to relay out all of your things. There's
00:39:27 ◼ ► no like can I find that app and bring it here? Because what I find funny with that too is like
00:39:32 ◼ ► there are some apps that support multiple windows, but you can't like open a new window if you can't
00:39:38 ◼ ► see the current one. Yeah, absolutely. I've also run into with one app I ran into a situation where
00:39:45 ◼ ► it was one of these time battery widget apps where I could set it and then I could never get back to
00:39:51 ◼ ► the screen. I think they did an update to fix it, but like I could never get back to the screen
00:39:55 ◼ ► where you set it because the screen where you said it was the opening window, but once it had
00:40:00 ◼ ► a window open it remembered that that was the clock and the battery count and you could never
00:40:06 ◼ ► get back to the setup screen. I was like ah 1.0 OS here we are beta apps 1.0 OS it's fine,
00:40:13 ◼ ► but it all needs to get better. I'm not expecting like a new interface model in 1.x right? I'm not,
00:40:25 ◼ ► you want it to do. It would be nice if some of those coming soon environments actually came
00:40:30 ◼ ► soon. It's still soon, but not yet. But not what what are you waiting for? Why? I want my beach.
00:40:36 ◼ ► You know missives from the sun are fine, but that's a reference to an upgrade plus episode.
00:40:45 ◼ ► Missives from the sun that are puscular and on the in the out in the distance in Joshua Tree are
00:40:52 ◼ ► great, but like I want my beach. I want my beach. Bring me the beach. I want to be Ken or I want to
00:40:57 ◼ ► work as Ken. That's there you go that that's in the in the dream house. Yeah let's do it.
00:41:02 ◼ ► Room around up time. Saddle up partner. Yee-haw. So many segments today. Wow. So many segments.
00:41:09 ◼ ► Look this is we're a segment show. Are we reacting to the death of Upshift where we're like
00:41:15 ◼ ► we have to run into the arms of our other segments. There was a different version of today's show that
00:41:21 ◼ ► brought Upshift back, but I got no because there was that big Bloomberg article right and I was
00:41:26 ◼ ► thinking about talking about it but then decided I didn't want to talk about it anymore. So that
00:41:30 ◼ ► we did it. We did it. It's it's in the ground. We did it. And but yes look we're a very segment
00:41:35 ◼ ► focused show. I think that's part of the joy of upgrade. I'm sure some people don't but I love it.
00:41:41 ◼ ► As of today's recording there are still no OLED iPad Pros. It was rumored that they would come
00:41:48 ◼ ► this month. There have been differing rumors. Some people saying that it would happen last week,
00:41:53 ◼ ► this week. Mark Gurman is saying later on in the month. So we are now on iPad Pro Watch over here.
00:41:59 ◼ ► I guess so. I guess we are. I mean I was checking the Apple newsroom on the hour every hour for
00:42:05 ◼ ► three hours today because as I said to Jason before we started recording I didn't prep half
00:42:10 ◼ ► of this show until like 20 minutes. This is like an hour before we started because I didn't want
00:42:15 ◼ ► to throw away work which I've done before. So I will now be doing that every Monday in case all
00:42:21 ◼ ► the iPad Pros appear. I've got a few Ming-Chi Kuo reports for you today. Okay. Because I'm busy.
00:42:28 ◼ ► Ming-Chi Kuo is reporting that Apple has canceled its plans for a micro LED screen. Micro led?
00:42:34 ◼ ► Micro LED screen in the Apple Watch Ultra for "the foreseeable future due to costs being too
00:42:41 ◼ ► high to be economically viable." It appears from Kuo's reporting that this is actually the case for
00:42:47 ◼ ► all micro LED projects from Apple. As of right now they can't seem to make the technology work
00:42:52 ◼ ► for them and be cost effective but they hope to return to it at some point. As a reminder,
00:42:58 ◼ ► because I had to look this up again today, micro LED tends to be better than OLED in brightness,
00:43:03 ◼ ► color, and contrast. So it's like a step past OLED. Yeah, I think this follows a report that a
00:43:10 ◼ ► supplier of micro LED had announced that they had lost a major supply or a major contract. Yep,
00:43:20 ◼ ► that was the report. And then Ming-Chi Kuo rolls in and goes "yeah that was Apple." And Kuo also
00:43:25 ◼ ► added that like he is had the understanding that there are people at Apple that got laid off who
00:43:31 ◼ ► were working on micro LED. Yeah, I mean this is honestly a speculative thing, right? Where you're
00:43:39 ◼ ► like "I think this could beat OLED and that we could take this and this could be our new
00:43:43 ◼ ► technology." And then you go down the road a few years and you say "no it's not." Right? Like that's
00:43:49 ◼ ► going to happen. You investigate stuff, it doesn't all pan out. And it sounds like this just didn't
00:43:53 ◼ ► pan out or didn't, to use a slightly different metaphor, pencil out where they looked at the
00:43:58 ◼ ► cost and they said "this doesn't make sense to do this." So yeah. At some point they will get back
00:44:04 ◼ ► to it. It makes sense, right? Like it's an advancement technology, but it doesn't look like
00:44:10 ◼ ► now is going to be the time that they get it done. So moving on, Kuo also has a couple of reports
00:44:18 ◼ ► about the Vision Pro. First off that he expects Apple will not make any significant hardware
00:44:22 ◼ ► upgrades until at least 2027 for the Vision Pro. He expects a modification of the current model
00:44:29 ◼ ► in late 2025 or early 2026, but his focus would be on reducing manufacturing cost and production
00:44:35 ◼ ► efficiency. It may not be a public revision at all unless they make a price cut. So they may
00:44:41 ◼ ► change the way they make the thing to make it more cost effective, but it's not like Vision Pro
00:44:47 ◼ ► with an M3 in it or whatever. It'd be more like Rev B, right? And really you wouldn't know unless
00:44:55 ◼ ► they were like "hey the Vision Pro is 2500 now" or "it's 3000" or whatever. We didn't do this,
00:45:01 ◼ ► it's a little too early for the draft of the ages, but I wonder what chip will be in the
00:45:08 ◼ ► next hardware, you know, actual hardware revision, not a stealth revision, of the Vision Pro? Is it
00:45:15 ◼ ► going to be like the M5? M6? I mean it's got an M2 in it now. M2 in it now, so if they made it today
00:45:23 ◼ ► it would be an M3 and so you maybe would say M3 until 2025. So then maybe, yeah, maybe M7?
00:45:31 ◼ ► M6 maybe? I don't think it's on. Yeah. Is it going to be every year for the M series? Maybe?
00:45:37 ◼ ► M6, M7? I mean it's just going to be interesting. If this is true you're going to have a Vision Pro
00:45:42 ◼ ► running the M2 replaced by a Vision Pro running the M567. It's a long, it's a long way to go,
00:45:51 ◼ ► it's all I'm saying. Yeah, we're gonna find out. Yeah, you know what though? We could talk about
00:45:56 ◼ ► this later on. Less of an impact maybe now. Yeah, well I was gonna say I think one of the reasons,
00:46:02 ◼ ► by the way, that that's okay is I think there are a bunch of things that Apple wants to bring to the
00:46:16 ◼ ► like, oh this will be better at this and it's like, yeah, we had to build a whole chip for that.
00:46:24 ◼ ► maybe they had that discussion about like, could we slide an M4 in here in 2026 or an M3 or are
00:46:31 ◼ ► we going to keep it at the M2? But I've been expecting for a while now that Vision Pro is just
00:46:36 ◼ ► going to be what it's going to be for a while, right? This is not a quick iterate product because
00:46:41 ◼ ► it's so far out in the future in terms of what's in it. It's so sort of unreal already. It could be
00:46:53 ◼ ► pushed, right? And so like there are efficiencies that they could make within the software, for
00:46:58 ◼ ► example, to make it run better and like it's a very powerful machine maybe for what it's doing,
00:47:07 ◼ ► Quo also reports that Apple is still on track to launch the Vision Pro outside of the US before
00:47:13 ◼ ► WWDC. Quo said that US sales have slowed down significantly currently, but that Apple have
00:47:26 ◼ ► in this period. It's expected that other English speaking nations will see the Vision Pro first
00:47:31 ◼ ► because that's just the easiest to do, but MacRumors is reporting that Apple is currently
00:47:35 ◼ ► working on localizing Vision OS into French, German, Italian, and Spanish. So there are your
00:47:48 ◼ ► MacRumors is reporting via Trendforce that server manufacturer Supermicro is "aggressively
00:47:56 ◼ ► expanding its capability to try and secure an order from Apple to assist with their upcoming
00:48:01 ◼ ► AI needs." It's expected Apple may be ordering around 20,000 servers this year for iOS 18,
00:48:08 ◼ ► looking to spend over $4 billion. I include this, I mean, it doesn't really say like, you know,
00:48:13 ◼ ► this is Supermicro trying to do it, but the server industry is expecting Apple will be making some
00:48:18 ◼ ► kind of order. This, I feel like kind of answers the question of it's not all going to be on device.
00:48:24 ◼ ► Right. Oh yeah, for sure. Well, there's a lot of processing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely,
00:48:29 ◼ ► I think they're going to put as much on device as they can, but you're going to have a whole
00:48:33 ◼ ► bunch of stuff that just benefits dramatically from it being in the cloud. And that's what I
00:48:37 ◼ ► would want to see as a hybrid model, because if they're going to do it on a device, they won't be
00:48:40 ◼ ► able to compete, but like I want there to be a split. And this is an indication at least that
00:48:44 ◼ ► there will be that split, which I think is important if Apple really wants to make a good
00:48:48 ◼ ► run at this. There needs to be some stuff that's done on the web. So there you go. Supermicro,
00:48:53 ◼ ► the company mentioned in that Bloomberg big hack story. You know, I was thinking about,
00:48:57 ◼ ► I was thinking about it, but what happened there? All right. Here's an interesting one.
00:49:03 ◼ ► According to Reuters, Apple is hiring Olivia Allaire Dalton, deputy assistant to the US
00:49:10 ◼ ► president and white house principal deputy press secretary. Bolton is expected to be taking a
00:49:16 ◼ ► senior communications role at Apple. Maybe Apple needs somebody who knows how to communicate with
00:49:22 ◼ ► governments. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I, you know what? I didn't consider that. Yes. Maybe that's what
00:49:28 ◼ ► this is for. Wow. Could she be leading their efforts to communicate on the government and
00:49:36 ◼ ► regulatory side of the business? Maybe as a senior communications person who might could maybe could
00:49:42 ◼ ► send better emails to people like Tim Sweeney. Maybe. I don't know. This could be for like
00:49:47 ◼ ► external, but also maybe Apple is preparing for these fights in America too, which I do feel like
00:49:53 ◼ ► it's going to happen. Uh, Dalton worked for, has worked for Joe Biden for 20 years, apparently.
00:50:00 ◼ ► So, okay. So you got to expect this person knows some people. Oh yeah. And I'm going to say now
00:50:08 ◼ ► that means Tim Cook, you can just, you can stay a CEO for another 20 years. That's 20 years,
00:50:18 ◼ ► who is an advertising executive from NBC universal to join a team working on global ad sales at Apple
00:50:24 ◼ ► TV+. Uh, these reports would seem to indicate Apple is working potentially on an ads tier for
00:50:29 ◼ ► TV+. I wrote a story on Mac world last year, thanks to my, you know, downstream conversations
00:50:38 ◼ ► and all that, and seeing how the way that this works, that it was inevitable that Apple would
00:50:44 ◼ ► put ads on a tier of Apple TV+. Inevitable. Literally everybody else is doing it, including
00:50:51 ◼ ► companies that said they would never Disney did it. Did it. Netflix did it. Like Amazon did it.
00:50:57 ◼ ► Amazon was the last where I was like, well, maybe because of the it's an ecosystem play. Maybe. Nope.
00:51:01 ◼ ► Amazon put ads on there. Now I'm not sure what this means in terms of Apple TV+ being like,
00:51:08 ◼ ► are they going to make everybody who's currently on Apple TV+ play, pay more for an ad free version,
00:51:15 ◼ ► which is what Amazon did, or are what they, are they going to make a bunch of Apple content
00:51:20 ◼ ► available for free or for some smaller price or tied into other Apple services, but with ads,
00:51:28 ◼ ► but the ad, what, what for the shorthand for people who are our listeners who hate ads,
00:51:33 ◼ ► I will say is an analysis of the businesses of streaming have largely found that you make more
00:51:41 ◼ ► money per user from an ad ad tier than from a no ad tier, which is why all the no ad tiers are
00:51:54 ◼ ► they made more money from the people watching ads than they did from the people who didn't
00:51:58 ◼ ► and were paying more, which is bad news for people who pay more like me to not watch ads.
00:52:03 ◼ ► Cause all of that's more expensive now because they need, it doesn't make sense, right? It
00:52:06 ◼ ► doesn't make sense that you would have, you'd be making less money from your premium subscribers.
00:52:11 ◼ ► So, and, and if you, if you lose them, you'll probably figure you'll lose them to the ad tier
00:52:16 ◼ ► where you're making more money anyway. So I think Apple can't, Apple can't let this go by.
00:52:21 ◼ ► They, they, they can't. I, I, I think one of Apple's struggles is that TV plus is a largely invisible
00:52:28 ◼ ► thing. When you talk to people out there, like it is a very small service and it's had some
00:52:34 ◼ ► successes like Ted Lasso, but it is, uh, it is small and that this might be a way for them
00:52:41 ◼ ► to get that content out there to a much larger audience and then upsell them on the paid product.
00:52:46 ◼ ► If they made this free or really cheap. They need to do it. You know, I talk about this a lot,
00:52:57 ◼ ► basically everybody that comes on that show seems to see some variation of it's good content,
00:53:01 ◼ ► but nobody's watching it. Like Apple needs that there, the viewership is very low for, uh,
00:53:08 ◼ ► for TV plus stuff and except for Ted Lasso. So they, they need to find a way to get more
00:53:15 ◼ ► people to watch the content. So having a easy to use free tier, like I hear people like in my life
00:53:21 ◼ ► talk about it a lot where it's like, I, you know, Oh, I've, I've referenced the TV plus thing. Like,
00:53:27 ◼ ► Oh, you know, I watched had less have been and canceled it. And so maybe I'll come back to it
00:53:31 ◼ ► later on. Like people did dip out, but yeah. And it's too bad. It's also too bad. Right. Because
00:53:36 ◼ ► those of us who have it and I've seen like, it's got a lot of really great stuff. Like it's batting
00:53:39 ◼ ► average is very good. There's a lot of really great stuff. Like if I, if somebody came to me
00:53:44 ◼ ► and said, I've never done Apple TV plus, and I'm thinking of getting it, what should I watch? I'd
00:53:48 ◼ ► be like, Oh boy, like all the seasons of for all mankind, all the seasons of Ted Lasso, Ted Lasso,
00:53:54 ◼ ► both the foundation seasons, silo, slow horse. Oh my God. There's so much stuff. Yep. Uh,
00:54:02 ◼ ► they're like, there's a lot of stuff there. Sure. Yeah. I've heard that. Is it masters of air?
00:54:09 ◼ ► Is that what it's called? Yeah. I've seen mixed reviews of it. So, I mean, that's for dads who
00:54:14 ◼ ► want to see something about world war II. It's great. Dad's need shows too. Dad's need shows.
00:54:19 ◼ ► That's nice. Well, they should start with slow horses though, but then yes, they can watch
00:54:22 ◼ ► masters of air. There's a lot of good content on TV plus, but it has a very tiny audience.
00:54:27 ◼ ► And that's not great for Apple because they actually do want to have like, they're paying
00:54:32 ◼ ► a lot of money for this content. If there's another way for them to monetize it, that will
00:54:35 ◼ ► increase the amount of money they make. They should do it. So, um, I, I, I suspect we'll get
00:54:41 ◼ ► a free or cheap Apple TV tier with ads and not the one that we're all on now. Um, and if they do that,
00:54:48 ◼ ► I'll be very sad. And I think that's a bad decision, right? Cause I think they're struggling
00:54:52 ◼ ► to get people to pay for Apple TV as it is. This episode is brought to you by delete me.
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00:57:27 ◼ ► couple of things with you. Sure. Really does it feel any different to the M2 MacBook Air?
00:57:33 ◼ ► No it's functionally identical. Yeah. I think if you're I mean it's incrementally faster on
00:57:40 ◼ ► multi-core like I can do the number I did the numbers yeah it's incrementally faster on multi-core
00:57:45 ◼ ► 17% or something it's good it's a nice update and you know so the GPUs are better the ray tracing
00:57:52 ◼ ► like if you're playing games that have a ray you know ray tracing that is going to make a huge
00:57:55 ◼ ► difference. I do love to trace those rays. You got to trace the rays if you want to chase the rays.
00:58:01 ◼ ► Man dude. But yeah I mean I had somebody ask me this on social media it was like oh but
00:58:08 ◼ ► does it actually feel do you sit down with it and go whoa and like I have an M2 midnight MacBook
00:58:14 ◼ ► Air and I have an M3 review unit midnight MacBook Air and I migrated one to the other and I was
00:58:19 ◼ ► using the M3 and I was like okay I mean it's like it feels like home it's the same. The point here
00:58:26 ◼ ► is again now don't upgrade from the M2 to the M3 unless there's the one feature there's the one
00:58:32 ◼ ► feature that if you want that feature you should do it but other than that you can M2 is fine like
00:58:38 ◼ ► for the M1 it's an interesting argument I think the M1 Air is still great and fine but you know
00:58:43 ◼ ► you could if you if you're gonna hand it down like for me I think about the M3 and I think the only
00:58:49 ◼ ► way I would buy an M3 Air is if I do a hand-me-down right if I if I take the M2 or or Lauren's M1 and
00:58:56 ◼ ► I give that to let's say Jamie so that she can do more video work for upgrade as our social media
00:59:02 ◼ ► expert that I might do but I'm not gonna you know other than a roll down like the M1 is great like
00:59:11 ◼ ► the M1 Air is great so it's really still honestly about people who are on Intel and are like I can't
00:59:18 ◼ ► I can't go and in fact that that ties in to one the one like surprising new feature of the M3 Air
00:59:25 ◼ ► which is that the the ability to drive two external displays with the lid closed which I know some
00:59:31 ◼ ► people who are on Intel that's what they wanted is the the run two external displays maybe with
00:59:37 ◼ ► a lid open sorry you can't do that but with the lid closed I mean two displays is the limit of
00:59:41 ◼ ► the base M chips it's been that way there are good reasons for it they would have to add it would add
00:59:46 ◼ ► size and cost to the chip and it's not what they're solving for if you want to drive three
00:59:50 ◼ ► displays you should get a better chip than that that's just bottom line and I'm okay with that
00:59:55 ◼ ► choice on Apple's part it was always frustrating that you could run your MacBook Air and lid closed
01:00:00 ◼ ► and still not drive a second display it was very frustrating so I'm glad that they've addressed
01:00:04 ◼ ► that and I did haul the Studio B studio display out and put it on my desk here with my other studio
01:00:18 ◼ ► and then I texted Casey and I said I don't know how light how you live like this because it's
01:00:23 ◼ ► just not for me it's too many things too many pixels too many k what I do here at my recording
01:00:29 ◼ ► desk I have one display in portrait where I have I have audio hijack and zoom like I have all of
01:00:39 ◼ ► the apps that are recording on that display so it's always visible no matter what I'm looking
01:00:44 ◼ ► I can always look over and be like yes I am recording so that you know that's what I have it
01:00:49 ◼ ► for that's nice yeah I just it's never really been for me but I did I work that way there's some
01:00:54 ◼ ► quirks one of them one of them can be scaled and the other one like scaled up to like more space
01:01:00 ◼ ► and the other one really can't and I wonder if that's just a function of the capability of like
01:01:06 ◼ ► the the you know we can do one at 5k and one in 6k and so it may be like that that's too many pixels
01:01:12 ◼ ► because it has to put the put the the scaled mode it's probably like drawing a larger one and then
01:01:18 ◼ ► scaling it down and it can't something is going on there that was surprised me a little but like
01:01:22 ◼ ► I was able to run it at sort of standard display mode with those two displays and you don't need
01:01:27 ◼ ► more space you've got more space you've got two monitors now how much space do you need you monsters
01:01:31 ◼ ► Casey's response when I said I don't know how you live like this to send a picture of his three
01:01:36 ◼ ► displays and I was like god just go away but um but yeah I was able to do it and it was great so
01:01:41 ◼ ► if you're that person who has especially if you've been hanging out on intel and being like I can't
01:01:46 ◼ ► give up my multiple displays I hope this will satisfy you because this is uh it you know I
01:01:54 ◼ ► think it's pretty good I never really liked I tried to use a an open laptop display with an
01:01:59 ◼ ► external display for a while I never really liked it because it was like what where is the I had it
01:02:04 ◼ ► on like a riser and it was tilted and it's still like the keyboard is there it still felt weird
01:02:09 ◼ ► anyway if you're that person that's a great reason to get it also can I tell my story about how I
01:02:15 ◼ ► spent a lot of money and about four hours of the one day I had to write the article on one paragraph
01:02:21 ◼ ► of my review can I do that can we pause just for one second okay I just have one I have a couple
01:02:26 ◼ ► of things I wanted to ask you about okay display thing all right is there any thing that you are
01:02:32 ◼ ► aware of for why they could not enable this on the m2 MacBook Air so there's some stuff going around
01:02:40 ◼ ► about how they did make a change in the m2 that allowed the uh the system to so in the m1 the
01:02:47 ◼ ► system it was hardwired essentially into the display and they and this this story um the
01:02:53 ◼ ► atp talked about it a lot the um last week the the story is basically that um even in the mac mini on
01:03:01 ◼ ► m1 you could only output one through thunderbolt and one through hdmi so there's like a hardwired
01:03:06 ◼ ► port they changed the design in m2 apparently uh that enough that the mac mini could output both
01:03:13 ◼ ► on thunderbolt they didn't have to go through the hdmi um but the m2 laptops didn't ever pick up
01:03:19 ◼ ► that feature so the question is the sort of conspiracy question is could they do a firmware
01:03:24 ◼ ► update for the m2 to enable the same feature yeah that's my that's what I wonder because they're
01:03:30 ◼ ► doing it with the m3 they're doing that with a macbook pro because it would seem that they did not
01:03:34 ◼ ► build into the m3 the ability for this to happen because otherwise that macbook pro would have had
01:03:38 ◼ ► that feature right like if it was specifically built in except except they did sort of build
01:03:43 ◼ ► into the m2 this other aspect of it yeah but they didn't enable it and then they didn't enable it on
01:03:48 ◼ ► the m3 macbook pro but they did then enable it and say that they will back port it to the m3 macbook
01:03:54 ◼ ► pro i i don't know the answer i think there are two scenarios that i just want to say for all the
01:04:01 ◼ ► people out there who are like you know conspiracy theorists i'm gonna lay them both out there you
01:04:06 ◼ ► decide you know how is princess kate doing i don't know oh please don't bring this to my show i can't
01:04:12 ◼ ► handle this the people in my life it's driving me mad photos were edited my photos were edited
01:04:18 ◼ ► anyway here are the two scenarios here are the two scenarios scenario one is yes apple built this
01:04:24 ◼ ► feature into their chip in m2 and yet nefariously withheld it for the entire run of that chip
01:04:29 ◼ ► because reasons but now they're enabling it because reasons and uh okay i think the more
01:04:37 ◼ ► reasonable suggestion because they never enabled it in the m2 even though they put it there and
01:04:43 ◼ ► yet they've done it for the m3 i think the more reasonable suggestion is that they did that work
01:04:47 ◼ ► in the m2 either to push this down the line to a point where in a future model they would be
01:04:54 ◼ ► comfortable putting it in and turning it on or they thought they had fixed it for the macbook air
01:05:00 ◼ ► and then they tried it and there was something that didn't work well maybe not maybe like you
01:05:06 ◼ ► could do it but maybe it was not up to their standards inconsistent buggy or whatever and
01:05:11 ◼ ► they're like shut it down we're just not going to do it for this generation better luck next time
01:05:16 ◼ ► let's fix it for m3 i think i i can't like if it worked fine in m2 they would have done this when
01:05:26 ◼ ► they rolled out m2 and they didn't so i think it's more likely that it didn't work fine or it was
01:05:35 ◼ ► never intended to work on the macbook air but they were working toward where they would get with the
01:05:41 ◼ ► m3 it is i will admit utterly baffling that they shipped the macbook pro with m3 with this
01:05:49 ◼ ► limitation that they could have addressed and didn't until now or later when the firmware
01:05:56 ◼ ► update comes out for it that that's weird right but you know sometimes the mother just wants to
01:06:02 ◼ ► edit her kids faces so that they're smiling on mother's day well i happens i will leave this show
01:06:07 ◼ ► the show will end i will walk away from this podcast right now i'm just getting people who
01:06:13 ◼ ► don't understand it will be baffled people who get it will get it and it's just i'm i'm just saying
01:06:17 ◼ ► there are conspiracy theories out there and some of them are probably not worth thinking about
01:06:22 ◼ ► this what i'm saying all right so thank you for answering my question you're well partly in a way
01:06:26 ◼ ► that i wish you wouldn't have but let's talk about what cost you some money and time okay these
01:06:32 ◼ ► things have wi-fi 6e i have like hero sixes that don't support wi-fi sexy and i thought to myself
01:06:39 ◼ ► should i get faster wi-fi in my house like it's been a little while since i bought new heroes
01:06:48 ◼ ► should i do it like faster wi-fi is nice although most of the computers won't take advantage of it
01:06:52 ◼ ► but eventually they will okay so i bought a new hero max 7 which the box came i'm like this is
01:07:05 ◼ ► a very large box for one hero they're very huge they're very big it's huge it's it's giant it's
01:07:12 ◼ ► like the size of a dinner plate there were multiple reasons why i didn't go with like the
01:07:18 ◼ ► 6e stuff when when i was buying stuff when we moved into our house last year partly it was cost
01:07:22 ◼ ► because it is much more expensive right now yes but the other was they're so much bigger and it's
01:07:27 ◼ ► like one of these things where at some point they will get smaller and cheaper but that point is not
01:07:32 ◼ ► now yeah so i decided to do it i i did it and the reason and it's fine it's it's for my work um
01:07:38 ◼ ► i set up the m3 macbook air and it got basically the same speed as my ethernet and i was like wow
01:07:45 ◼ ► okay that's great right like for me yeah faster file transfer inside the house is good but like
01:07:51 ◼ ► the number one thing is if i can get the same up and down to the world as i do on my ethernet
01:07:57 ◼ ► connected mac studio word we're living large here it was like gigabit up and down that's what i want
01:08:04 ◼ ► great it doesn't always work that way it was inconsistent but like i was able to get it to
01:08:08 ◼ ► work that way and my my macbook arim too while pretty speedy was not as speedy so i'm like okay
01:08:15 ◼ ► all right worth it i can talk about it i wrote a paragraph about it the problem is that i changed
01:08:21 ◼ ► my network configuration mike know what happens then everything breaks so my internet connection
01:08:28 ◼ ► broke um it turns out that the way my fiber router was set up is it was forwarding all of the traffic
01:08:36 ◼ ► to the mac address of the old ero that i had replaced oh god so i had to connect my a macbook
01:08:45 ◼ ► air via an ethernet dongle directly to the uh to the fiber router and change it to point
01:08:52 ◼ ► and i was like what is happening why is it not working why is it not working i could get internet
01:08:58 ◼ ► out but like i couldn't get any traffic back in what is happening here turns out um i figured it
01:09:04 ◼ ► out i set that to the new router and it didn't work so then i rebooted them both rebooted the
01:09:11 ◼ ► fiber router rebooted the ero didn't work rebooted unplugged everything including the other ero
01:09:25 ◼ ► all of the like port forwarding and reservations and stuff didn't work and i was so frustrated and
01:09:34 ◼ ► i was like okay let's just and so i unplugged everything again left it for five minutes came
01:09:39 ◼ ► back plugged it in didn't work i'm like what is happening i looked i looked at the at the router
01:09:44 ◼ ► settings i'm like i googled for it and they're like do this it's like i did that that's what i
01:09:49 ◼ ► did i googled that last time i set this up why is it not working i sent it and then i did actually
01:09:54 ◼ ► the thing that cured this the thing that solved it which is i sent an email to ero support and i said
01:10:01 ◼ ► why is it that when i swapped one of your heroes for the other all of a sudden i can't get any any
01:10:07 ◼ ► traffic forwarding but the moment i sent it i thought to myself this isn't the ero the ero is
01:10:11 ◼ ► not seeing any traffic this is coming from the router the router is is still not even though
01:10:16 ◼ ► it's set to forward it it's still i reset the router um it still didn't work like what is
01:10:23 ◼ ► happening and and then and i and i uh unplugged it and replugged it four hours in i've rebooted
01:10:32 ◼ ► these things so many times and then i was reminded of the number one thing that i always learn and
01:10:40 ◼ ► then always forget about network stuff which is you know what solves network stuff mike what is it
01:11:05 ◼ ► after four hours because something was cached somewhere even through resets it would have just
01:11:12 ◼ ► started working so um and zack is saying fun with with like time to live concept like at least from
01:11:19 ◼ ► a network perspective uh it shouldn't be because the time to live was set to be very low i was i
01:11:26 ◼ ► reset the device that was forwarding to the other device it didn't matter though somewhere somewhere
01:11:31 ◼ ► in there in the connection between those two devices there was a thing that really wanted
01:11:37 ◼ ► to forward all the traffic to the wrong place and that just stayed there until suddenly it went oh
01:11:46 ◼ ► right this guy done solved i wasted four hours taking screenshots of the aero app so i'd remember
01:11:55 ◼ ► what ports were being remapped to what i'm like oh it didn't matter i just needed to wait i just
01:12:00 ◼ ► needed to be patient i need to leave the house for four hours anyway those four hours i could
01:12:04 ◼ ► have been writing a macbook air review that i wasn't but you know the wi-fi is it's really
01:12:11 ◼ ► fast and i think covers the house better because it's an enormous thing with many many different
01:12:16 ◼ ► antenna in it uh different bands so i look forward to the day that i do buy a device that has wi-fi
01:12:24 ◼ ► uh 6e in it because i'll it'll be fast hooray how does the uh midnight coating hold up to fingerprints
01:12:33 ◼ ► now okay new anodization seal the same one that's on the space black and apple's like aha it will be
01:12:40 ◼ ► better for fingerprints it will be like don't worry about the fingerprints i'm gonna be that
01:12:45 ◼ ► guy and say i have two midnight macbook areas now and let me tell you they both cover with
01:12:49 ◼ ► fingerprints it's fine that's i don't they don't bother me but they're also not invisible they are
01:12:55 ◼ ► present i wonder if maybe part of it is that the space black is lighter than the midnight they kept
01:13:02 ◼ ► the midnight shade is exactly the same as it was on the m2 and so i wonder if maybe one of the
01:13:07 ◼ ► reasons the space black on the macbook pro is not so black is because the blacker you make it the
01:13:13 ◼ ► worse the fingerprints look and so they did the anodization seal on a darker gray and it it doesn't
01:13:19 ◼ ► pick up as much the midnight macbook air even on the m3 i'm sorry like i try to say i might say that
01:13:26 ◼ ► it's fainter or something but really it's it's not any different i mean like for me at least i
01:13:38 ◼ ► maybe they wipe off a little bit better but like i'm struggling to try to give you anything here
01:13:43 ◼ ► other than to say in my experience it like if you if you the only thing preventing you from
01:13:49 ◼ ► buying an m2 macbook air is that you can't bear the fingerprints on the midnight macbook air
01:13:54 ◼ ► do not buy the m3 midnight macbook air because it still has fingerprints on it pretty much the same
01:14:00 ◼ ► sorry i know you spoke about like um speed and and that kind of stuff a little bit already but
01:14:07 ◼ ► there was something that i kind of really took away from the charts in your piece which is just
01:14:14 ◼ ► apple silicon really is enforcing the idea that it's kind of like two years is what you should
01:14:19 ◼ ► be looking at at the like the very soonest before you would want to update yeah if you need to really
01:14:24 ◼ ► push it other than like very specific things in certain areas like there's the video encoding
01:14:28 ◼ ► stuff that went on the m2 that wasn't on the m1 so if you're doing things to like uh apple's uh
01:14:33 ◼ ► apple's codex uh encoding there is built in in a processor block in the m2 that wasn't there in the
01:14:39 ◼ ► m1 it was only in the m1 uh pro and max and ultra um and the so they're like it's got a new i think
01:14:47 ◼ ► it's a neural engine that has more cores or it's the newer neural engine i mean there's stuff in
01:14:51 ◼ ► there and the ray tracing is in there right there's stuff but unless you're a very specific use case
01:14:57 ◼ ► that requires these kind of updates even the m1 i mean if you're pushing if you're pushing
01:15:02 ◼ ► your CPUs or your GPUs uh from an m1 you will get it's it's like 30 or 40 percent faster i mean it
01:15:11 ◼ ► will be it'll be better i would argue that most of the people who are in that situation might want to
01:15:16 ◼ ► think about like a macbook pro because you're pushing it that hard because the macbook air
01:15:20 ◼ ► is a fanless laptop that is pretty good for most people but it's not going to do it for everybody
01:15:25 ◼ ► so i i don't know um it's yeah it's i would say what i said before which is coming from intel
01:15:32 ◼ ► then sure it's a no-brainer coming from the m1 even there i think i think i think the m1 air is
01:15:40 ◼ ► fine i think it's still fine so i think apple silicon um we've seen two revisions now and i
01:15:46 ◼ ► probably wouldn't give a strong buy recommendation to an upgrader coming from m1 even though i i like
01:15:51 ◼ ► the design i think the m2 air design that's now in the m3 is is really good um i i you know i like
01:15:59 ◼ ► the screen i like the magsafe like there are lots of reasons but again the m1 air is still a good
01:16:05 ◼ ► computer did you find the quote world's best consumer laptop for ai to be especially good
01:16:12 ◼ ► at ai tasks uh i mean no uh examples that i was given i mean like it's great in the cloud because
01:16:23 ◼ ► it just uses the cloud it's got a neural engine the ai task that i use the most is optimized for
01:16:28 ◼ ► gpu and not for neural engine um but it works i like it's entirely just it's it's no i think
01:16:36 ◼ ► not really any better than the m2 was it really is just that apple knows that everybody's talking
01:16:41 ◼ ► about ai and ai laptops and i think intel is pushing this concept of the ai laptop and apple's
01:16:46 ◼ ► like wait a second and and really it's that decision of like do you hover above the fray
01:16:51 ◼ ► or do you feel like you're getting uh beaten up about ai which apple is and therefore you're
01:16:57 ◼ ► going to say no no no no no no no our laptops do that too we just haven't talked about it and so
01:17:01 ◼ ► now we're going to talk about it but as it was i ran a whisper transcribe on them and it was faster
01:17:09 ◼ ► but again it was it was absolutely uh destroyed by a whisper transcode on a 40 gpu macbook pro right
01:17:18 ◼ ► so yeah i will make apple's argument for them a little bit and just say that like because i know
01:17:23 ◼ ► a lot of people have been putting fun as i put fun in now so i will now argue on the other side too
01:17:27 ◼ ► the majority of tasks that people are doing with ai right now are web-based tasks and the
01:17:35 ◼ ► macbook air is thin light great battery life yeah safari is great to use so fast wi-fi you can fast
01:17:42 ◼ ► wi-fi right you can make the argument that for the majority of tasks that people are actually doing
01:17:47 ◼ ► of ai the macbook air could well be the best laptop for this because i think it's the best
01:17:54 ◼ ► laptop for web browsing consumer laptop right which is because the macbook pro is yeah they're
01:17:59 ◼ ► basically consumers are using chat gpt consumers are not putting their own models onto a machine
01:18:05 ◼ ► and right there are some apps that do it for like photo stuff and there are some and there may be
01:18:09 ◼ ► more in the future but yes i think all of us all of us uh close focus apple people look at this and
01:18:16 ◼ ► we're you know we kind of laugh at it but like what they're doing here is i think apple has
01:18:20 ◼ ► felt like there's a perception that apple doesn't do ai which is incorrect and that they haven't
01:18:25 ◼ ► talked about it and that arguments have been framed around ai for laptops and for computers
01:18:31 ◼ ► in general and that apple is left out of the argument or is discounted and they they are afraid
01:18:38 ◼ ► that when somebody's weighing a purchase of an apple silicon laptop versus a an intel laptop
01:18:45 ◼ ► that one of the arguments that's being used against them is well this is an ai laptop apple
01:18:50 ◼ ► doesn't do ai and so apple's basically said okay if those are going to be the terms of the debate
01:18:55 ◼ ► so be it we're now going to talk about ai so ai has become essentially a check mark on a box right
01:19:01 ◼ ► you can't not talk about even if you check every box and and you know but you know for those who
01:19:07 ◼ ► don't know back when there were boxes the check mark on the box was obvious things but if you
01:19:12 ◼ ► didn't put it there people would think you didn't support it and so you ended up with an enormous
01:19:17 ◼ ► list of things with check marks next to them because you need to reassure people yes it does
01:19:22 ◼ ► that and ai is now a check mark for laptops so yes it's in the press release and does it change
01:19:30 ◼ ► the mac experience at all no not at all but it also took apple to actually start using the words
01:19:37 ◼ ► right yeah they were refusing to use the word apple was very much like this isn't really
01:19:43 ◼ ► artificial intelligence it's more like machine learning and we I was on that camp and the world
01:19:47 ◼ ► says yeah but we're calling it ai you're like all right i guess we're calling it that now it's just
01:19:52 ◼ ► look i didn't like the word app i preferred program or software and you know what at some
01:19:57 ◼ ► point you're like all right we're doing apps they're apps now yay apps would have rose by any
01:20:03 ◼ ► other name hallucinate so sweetly jason you know does anything remain missing from the macbook air
01:20:11 ◼ ► for you where what are the things you would like to see apple address with the macbook air that
01:20:16 ◼ ► they've yet to the webcam is fine i mean they're doing a lot of processing but it's still a 1080
01:20:23 ◼ ► webcam i would like them to put a higher resolution webcam with a larger field of view and center stage
01:20:35 ◼ ► i want there to be a better camera up there yeah um uh you know i i like i like touch id great when
01:20:43 ◼ ► i have used windows laptops like i have a surface go that you know is terrible but it runs some
01:20:50 ◼ ► windows software and uh every time i open it up it's like oh jason and it logs me in because it's
01:20:56 ◼ ► got face recognition and i think this dumb old windows convertible has face recognition and my
01:21:04 ◼ ► max don't and maybe it's bad and maybe this maybe it's not up to apple standards and all that but
01:21:08 ◼ ► like i feel like the real reason there's no face id on apple laptops is because they want to engineer
01:21:14 ◼ ► the screen part to be so thin that the sensors don't fit in there and they can't or more
01:21:19 ◼ ► accurately they can't reuse their sensors from the iphone and the ipad and therefore they just
01:21:25 ◼ ► don't bother and there should be face id on mac laptops and and and honestly and on mac desktops
01:21:31 ◼ ► like on on uh or on the studio display right like there should be there should be face id on the mac
01:21:37 ◼ ► and they're just gonna say this no one's gonna like it jason but i'm gonna say it all right
01:21:41 ◼ ► you ready this is gonna be very unpopular but i'm gonna say it i would take to get a better camera
01:21:48 ◼ ► and face id i would take a camera bump on a laptop whoa i'd take it i want them that bad i have
01:21:55 ◼ ► camera bumps on my phone and i'm fine with it put a put a camera bump on the laptop give me the
01:22:01 ◼ ► features yeah i said it good good for you i will take the bullet you know yeah uh you know you can
01:22:09 ◼ ► you can you can flog me on social media it's fine so you put a list in here and i actually this is
01:22:14 ◼ ► what i was going to say so thank you for channeling me or we're in agreement on this but the other
01:22:18 ◼ ► thing that's out there that you put in here that's absolutely true i feel like at this point we're
01:22:22 ◼ ► on the same wavelength is that yeah we we we we lose track of it and every now and then we mention
01:22:28 ◼ ► it but i'm just going to say it again there's a whole conversation that we've had here many many
01:22:31 ◼ ► times before but it needs to be said again which is uh you know what would be great especially when
01:22:36 ◼ ► my wi-fi was broken and i was trying to figure out whether things were reachable from the outside or
01:22:41 ◼ ► not and i had to use my iphone which was not ideal for setting settings in a web page cellular option
01:22:47 ◼ ► on laptops is is i i keep thinking that they it feels to me now like they're just trying to put
01:22:54 ◼ ► it off until they can integrate cellular into their chips which keeps getting kicked down the
01:22:59 ◼ ► road but like i find cellular and my ipad so useful and people always say i'm gonna say it
01:23:06 ◼ ► here because every time we mention this people like oh you can just tether i hate tethering
01:23:10 ◼ ► does my phone hot it kills the battery it's inconsistent or you've got a wire attached to
01:23:17 ◼ ► another thing i don't i i don't like it i have a cellular ipad i'm very happy i have to connect
01:23:24 ◼ ► to tethering every three times to get it to work one time this is like oh this is constant for me
01:23:29 ◼ ► you know it's like you connect it's like doesn't work connect doesn't work connect oh yeah it works
01:23:33 ◼ ► now it's a real good enough option which is like oh there's this thing that's kind of quirky and
01:23:37 ◼ ► strange but it exists and therefore you shouldn't need anything more and the answer is no we we
01:23:42 ◼ ► deserve better mac users deserve better mac users deserve to have cellular options on the laptops
01:23:48 ◼ ► just like ipad users have and uh and get on it like again like this should be in there i'm sorry
01:23:55 ◼ ► it should be in there as an option and i don't want to hear yeah i don't hear about tethering
01:23:58 ◼ ► and i don't want to hear about well they would have to pay a fee i don't care so they have they
01:24:02 ◼ ► probably have to pay a thousand dollars but like put give me the option give me the option of having
01:24:07 ◼ ► cellular on a laptop it would be great and i know that there's os things but they have been making
01:24:12 ◼ ► progress on the os side in controlling data usage by runaway you know apps they're doing more there
01:24:19 ◼ ► and i would also say you know what if you're that concerned about data usage get an unlimited plan
01:24:24 ◼ ► but like live get me the option let me have the option of putting a mac on cellular via some means
01:24:30 ◼ ► other than uh connecting to an example give us what we deserve cell radios and camera bumps
01:24:36 ◼ ► that's what we deserve all right just give us what we deserve on our laptops but all in all
01:24:41 ◼ ► m3 mac will care good laptop right good laptop yeah because the m2 was great and this is just
01:24:48 ◼ ► that but a little more recent so it's the latest model of the m2 if you remember from the mac draft
01:24:54 ◼ ► many people said m2 macbook air best mac i love it and so this is just that again and there was
01:25:01 ◼ ► a whole like there's the there's the discourse going around and like oh i i miss the wedge design
01:25:07 ◼ ► i have no time for this discourse i have no time for it i i don't either like i mean sure people
01:25:13 ◼ ► are nostalgic for for all sorts of stuff that is in the past and gone but this is this is i like
01:25:18 ◼ ► this design better like it's great if you want to keep the design of a 10 year old laptop that's
01:25:24 ◼ ► great it still works use it you know what i mean like we don't have to keep making new ones you
01:25:30 ◼ ► want an old laptop so bad use the old laptop but new laptop better than old laptop that's that's
01:25:36 ◼ ► what i say i agree if you enjoy this show and would like more of this show there's a very easy
01:25:42 ◼ ► way to do it go to getupgradeplus.com and you could get ad-free longer episodes of upgrade each
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01:25:59 ◼ ► of exclusive content for relay fm members crossover shows we do behind the scenes episodes of uh of
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01:26:57 ◼ ► kevin writes in and says have either of you tried facetime on apple tv i tried it for the first time
01:27:05 ◼ ► this weekend and i was blown away by how good the experience with continuity camera was
01:27:10 ◼ ► i have okay i've done zoom and facetime on apple tv do you do it a lot i do it some although i will
01:27:18 ◼ ► say it's a little telling that um that we didn't last night we did our zoom with lauren's family
01:27:26 ◼ ► and we just did it on an ipad sitting on the table instead um there's two reasons for that one is i
01:27:33 ◼ ► didn't want to go get the camera mount and attach it and connect it and do all of those things and
01:27:37 ◼ ► we were doing a bunch of other stuff and watching the oscars and making dinner and it was just
01:27:40 ◼ ► another thing um and the other thing is sound honestly which is i feel like when when the audio
01:27:47 ◼ ► is coming out of the tv far away and the microphone is on the phone far away that you end up sort of
01:27:52 ◼ ► like shouting and then there's room echo and it's not it cannot be as necessarily as good some of
01:27:58 ◼ ► that i think facetime is better at this and the zoom strangely because zoom does this all the time
01:28:03 ◼ ► for other zooms is maybe lacking a little bit there and maybe it will get better over time
01:28:08 ◼ ► but i found that that was a little echoey and that people were complaining about how we sounded which
01:28:12 ◼ ► is like that's not acceptable um so so it's a work in progress there i will say again apple or
01:28:21 ◼ ► one of its partners who you know if apple doesn't want to do it sometimes they're like oh we'll have
01:28:26 ◼ ► bell can do it or whatever they need somebody needs to make a continuity camera right because
01:28:34 ◼ ► there's no usb c on the apple tv anymore there's no usb on the apple tv anymore they took it off
01:28:42 ◼ ► so you can't just plug in a webcam to it and use that you have to use continuity camera so i would
01:28:47 ◼ ► like somebody to make a continuity camera that i can leave plugged in sitting on top of my tv so
01:28:54 ◼ ► that whenever we get a facetime while we're watching tv for my daughter my son other members
01:28:58 ◼ ► of my family i can just say yes and boop it pops up on apple tv but um now it's like oh good your
01:29:06 ◼ ► phone and move it over here and like i just don't want to do it so um and we could like use continuity
01:29:12 ◼ ► camera like on down on the table and look at the tv but then we're looking above the camera which
01:29:17 ◼ ► is also weird and not ideal so so my answer is i think this is a really good feature and i think
01:29:22 ◼ ► center stage looks really good with the iphone camera and i think it works really well and i
01:29:27 ◼ ► love the angle it gives where you can see us and we're sitting on the couch and it feels like a
01:29:30 ◼ ► sci-fi movie and i like it a lot but i've had some audio problems especially with zoom and i hate the
01:29:36 ◼ ► fact that i have to go through all the trouble of getting it and balancing it my phone falls off
01:29:39 ◼ ► because i didn't balance it right and i'm like i'm gonna break my phone trying to set up continuity
01:29:44 ◼ ► camera so i want there to be a continuity camera sold by somebody that i can leave plugged in
01:29:50 ◼ ► sitting on top of my tv please this isn't what you're asking for but i just wanted to put it
01:29:55 ◼ ► in here because i saw it i don't know why i find it funny but i do the bell can have an apple tv
01:30:00 ◼ ► like a tv focused uh mount magsafe mount thing now where you can put it on top of the tv or stick it
01:30:09 ◼ ► to the wall or whatever um i just find that funny i don't know why but it's funny to me you know i
01:30:15 ◼ ► haven't i have not used it and i had not considered which i have that mount it's good okay oh yeah the
01:30:20 ◼ ► belkin it's just there it's their mount for it's mount for tv essentially right it's for apple tv
01:30:30 ◼ ► looks just like the mount that i have that goes on the studio display i mean yes it's it's it's
01:30:36 ◼ ► fine stuck to the wall this one which is what makes it oh okay well that's that's that's nice
01:30:41 ◼ ► i guess mounting bracket for okay the keyhole mounts and mounting bracket added for added
01:30:45 ◼ ► stability that's that's good um but again then you got to still put your phone on it right like
01:30:51 ◼ ► and it just sits up there otherwise and i just i kind of want there to just be a camera up there
01:30:59 ◼ ► okay um i didn't have a way to do it that made sense uh especially with the way that we have
01:31:05 ◼ ► things set up like we have our tv mounted to the wall right and so like ah yes it's just like how
01:31:09 ◼ ► would i even do this and then it's like i'm just gonna put like the phone or the ipad in front of
01:31:13 ◼ ► me i'll just talk to the ipad that's in front of me which is i've been doing for years exactly and
01:31:17 ◼ ► so like there i do see the benefit of this product but there are some weird places i'd never even
01:31:23 ◼ ► considered the thing about like if it's with your phone and your phone's all the way over there if
01:31:28 ◼ ► you have that kind of living room which i know you do you have quite a long living room how are they
01:31:32 ◼ ► hearing you like with the phone uh yeah it's a good feature it is a good feature but it's not
01:31:38 ◼ ► one that i've used i i think i think it's only going to get better i think you you got to do a
01:31:42 ◼ ► lot of audio processing on the on the microphone to get it to isolate the voices which i think that
01:31:47 ◼ ► they're doing some of already like i said i think the facetime experience actually was better which
01:31:52 ◼ ► leads me to believe that maybe like apple really tuned this and zoom is sort of they're new on the
01:31:57 ◼ ► platform and i think they're maybe using things that are tuned for other environments and hopefully
01:32:02 ◼ ► they know that and then that they're working on it but like i really like the idea i would really
01:32:06 ◼ ► like to be able to make all of those calls that we do with our kids and lauren's family in the living
01:32:12 ◼ ► room i'd like to do those all on the tv i think that would be really nice because when i've done
01:32:17 ◼ ► it it's really quite pleasant but it it's not it's not all the way there it just isn't tom says do
01:32:25 ◼ ► you or asks do you think the ipad mini would ever get face id and the best possible screen available
01:32:32 ◼ ► i translate it to this basically do we ever think apple would make a pro version of the ipad mini
01:32:37 ◼ ► i don't i don't think so i don't think so anymore it's gonna always hover in the mid-range i think
01:32:44 ◼ ► it's always going to be like the small version of the mid-range ipad yes and that they it's a
01:32:49 ◼ ► combination of giving it a decent price for people who are price sensitive and want a smaller one
01:32:55 ◼ ► and a decent you know price for people who want a small ipad that that is decent specs so i think
01:33:01 ◼ ► it's always going to be the small mid-range ipad is like it will follow that so you know i do expect
01:33:07 ◼ ► it will get face id at some point in the future like i expect years into the future the ipad air
01:33:13 ◼ ► will get face id like yeah probably and so then it did mini would probably follow and oled maybe
01:33:21 ◼ ► in the future and the mini would get oled too but like i feel like it's always going to be on that
01:33:25 ◼ ► kind of ipad air level right while i would love a all bells and whistles version of the ipad mini
01:33:32 ◼ ► i don't think that's what this product is okay just don't think it is that anymore because it's
01:33:38 ◼ ► going to be very hard to argue uh an 800 dollar ipad mini or whatever it would be right uh that's
01:33:45 ◼ ► just a hard argument to make yeah ian wants to know what is your backpack of choice for commuting
01:33:51 ◼ ► of a larger than usual technology loadout i usually need to keep two 16-inch macbook pros
01:33:56 ◼ ► with me due to work my word and most bags aren't very accommodating i'm expecting neither of us and
01:34:02 ◼ ► i especially know if you will be able to answer this question specifically but i do have a
01:34:06 ◼ ► recommendation that i want to make for for myself for a larger uh technology loadout like two i don't
01:34:12 ◼ ► know if any bag in the world can accommodate two 16-inch macbook pros i would love to know what ian
01:34:17 ◼ ► needs that for as well but i want to make a recommendation for my kind of traveling bag which
01:34:23 ◼ ► is where i have the most technology on a daily basis i've used a bag from belroy for years now
01:34:30 ◼ ► called the belroy tokyo tote pack which i really love it's like a tote bag with backpack straps
01:34:35 ◼ ► great and i was using for travel the bag that all the nerds use the peak design right so that
01:34:42 ◼ ► became the the nerd bag for a while the peak design everyday backpack i got frustrated with
01:34:48 ◼ ► that bag over time like it has a very specific way that it wants you to use the bag and i ended
01:34:55 ◼ ► up not fitting with that so i went with uh a while ago another belroy bag the belroy venture ready
01:35:01 ◼ ► pack it's a big bag big bag and i use this when i travel and this bag is so big how big is it you
01:35:10 ◼ ► ask this bag is so big you can how big is it you can fit the vision pro travel case in it
01:35:17 ◼ ► horizontally it's that big so you know you can you can fit the vision oh oh no your vision pro
01:35:25 ◼ ► case you can fit my vision pro case that's cheap yeah i'm talking about my backpack the pillow the
01:35:31 ◼ ► apple pillow yes that can fit horizontally in this bag so you can still put more stuff in this bag
01:35:38 ◼ ► i would say you probably could fit two 16-inch laptops in this bag it would be tight but that
01:35:44 ◼ ► you would do it yeah this bag is really really nicely made i love belroy stuff and it's basically
01:35:49 ◼ ► what i wanted which was it's got some pockets but it's got just a very large open space where i can
01:35:55 ◼ ► put lots of big stuff in there so that's what i use that's what i recommend i just want to
01:35:59 ◼ ► recommend this bag to everyone i recommended it to our friend underscore and he bought it and he
01:36:05 ◼ ► loves it too so don't just take my word for it you can take underscore's word for it as well
01:36:09 ◼ ► and i'll i'll just say again my backpack is is a 25 year old backpack that i loved so much that
01:36:17 ◼ ► when it started to fall apart um i contacted the company and they're like we don't make that
01:36:22 ◼ ► anymore we'll send you a new one i'm like but i like this one and they sent me a new one it's
01:36:26 ◼ ► like i don't like this one i like this old one um so much so that i went on ebay and i found one
01:36:34 ◼ ► that was the same and i bought that so i'm actually not using the same backpack i've used for 25 years
01:36:39 ◼ ► i'm using another version someone else's backpack that i've used for 25 years our friend james
01:36:47 ◼ ► thompson also has this backpack and still uses it because it's great but they don't make it anymore
01:36:51 ◼ ► so um i can't really recommend it but i i can fit stuff in it so that's a backpack from the
01:36:59 ◼ ► late 90s that uh has had a vision pro in it so that's pretty cool get a time machine yeah
01:37:05 ◼ ► that's 1999 go to brent haven say i want your computer backpack you know what computer laptops
01:37:13 ◼ ► from 25 years old probably can fit two 16 inch mac because laptops were bigger so yeah it's not as
01:37:20 ◼ ► well padded as i think modern backpacks are but yeah i mean i could i have fit big big laptops in
01:37:26 ◼ ► there you're probably right because the laptops were bigger back then you probably could fit
01:37:30 ◼ ► so okay that's my answer then that's my final answer machine time machine or ebay if you would
01:37:37 ◼ ► like to send in a question that we can answer with the words time machine go to upgradefeedback.com
01:37:43 ◼ ► you can send us in your feedback your follow-up your ask upgrade questions and your snow talk
01:37:48 ◼ ► questions i just want to say as always thank you so much to our listeners who send me in so much
01:37:53 ◼ ► interesting stuff every week and i just want to say again i love so much that people use the form
01:37:58 ◼ ► the form makes my life so much better i don't want the email it's terrible to get this stuff on
01:38:03 ◼ ► social media the form is good form is good so thank you to people that use the form if you
01:38:09 ◼ ► want to find jason's work online including his wonderful uh review of the m3 macbook air go to
01:38:15 ◼ ► sixcolors.com you can hear jason's shows here on relay fm and the incomparable.com as well you can
01:38:22 ◼ ► listen to my podcast here on relay fm you can find my product work at cortexbrand.com we're
01:38:27 ◼ ► on social media jason is at j snow j s n e double l i am at i mike i m y k e if you want to find
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