Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► (music)

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, Episode 500.

00:00:14 ◼   ► 500.

00:00:15 ◼   ► It is February 19th 2024, today's show is brought to you by Vitaly. Delete me and ladder.

00:00:22 ◼   ► My name is Mike Hurley and I am joined by a man who's been on 499

00:00:28 ◼   ► of these 500 episodes, Jason Snell. Hi, Jason.

00:00:32 ◼   ► It might be 498, but most of them, hi.

00:00:34 ◼   ► You missed two? I thought we just won.

00:00:36 ◼   ► A year ago, I think I missed both of those episodes when I went to New Zealand.

00:00:40 ◼   ► You did, I made you take both of them off.

00:00:42 ◼   ► Yes, 498, I've been on less.

00:00:44 ◼   ► I've probably been on like 470 or something like that.

00:00:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm sure one of our many official historians will tell us at some point what that is.

00:00:54 ◼   ► But I just want to point out that a little quirk of roman numerals,

00:01:00 ◼   ► they have a numeral for 500, which I think is funny.

00:01:03 ◼   ► Like you don't need that, but they have it.

00:01:05 ◼   ► What is it?

00:01:05 ◼   ► It's D, so it is Upgrade D.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Today, nope, I'm not, you know what?

00:01:10 ◼   ► And we're doing a report card, so Upgrade D, below average.

00:01:14 ◼   ► Upgrade D, that's, I've been hearing a lot of these things recently.

00:01:17 ◼   ► It looks like letterbox D, it's one of those background tasks that you do.

00:01:21 ◼   ► Upgrade D.

00:01:21 ◼   ► It's a demon.

00:01:22 ◼   ► And also, Upgrade D is upgraded, which is also fun.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Upgraded, yeah, it is great.

00:01:31 ◼   ► I love it, upgraded.

00:01:32 ◼   ► Welcome to Upgraded.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Upgraded.

00:01:34 ◼   ► I have a snow talk question for you to start this 500th episode, comes from Ben.

00:01:40 ◼   ► Ben wants to know, do the two of you do anything in particular

00:01:44 ◼   ► to keep your relationship fresh and positive?

00:01:46 ◼   ► I marvel every week your mix of fun banter, professional analysis,

00:01:51 ◼   ► and what seems like a true warm friendship with no apparent tension after all of these years.

00:01:56 ◼   ► Well, so I want to just start this off before you actually answer with like,

00:02:00 ◼   ► one of the things that like broke my heart as a younger man

00:02:04 ◼   ► was finding out that the Mythbusters guys didn't really get on very well.

00:02:08 ◼   ► Like they had a good professional relationship, but that was where it like ended.

00:02:12 ◼   ► Like they were not friends and they would say that they were not friends.

00:02:15 ◼   ► And like, and when I found that out, it like kind of broke my heart a little bit.

00:02:20 ◼   ► And so I'm here to say we're not friends.

00:02:22 ◼   ► No, that's right.

00:02:23 ◼   ► That's how we keep it.

00:02:24 ◼   ► That's how we keep it solid is never speak outside the podcast.

00:02:28 ◼   ► Which is also not true.

00:02:30 ◼   ► We talk all the time.

00:02:31 ◼   ► We do.

00:02:32 ◼   ► Well, this is a snow talk question, so you will get the ability to answer first.

00:02:35 ◼   ► But I have some things to say about this also.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Oh, I mean, I don't even know what to say about this.

00:02:40 ◼   ► We, yeah, we're friends.

00:02:42 ◼   ► And I think it would be different.

00:02:44 ◼   ► I mean, you're very far away.

00:02:45 ◼   ► So I only get to see you in person every so often.

00:02:48 ◼   ► And we, but we have, like so many people do, you know, we have slack conversations and

00:02:54 ◼   ► like there's always a back and forth.

00:02:56 ◼   ► I think we get along.

00:03:00 ◼   ► I don't even know how to say it.

00:03:03 ◼   ► Like, I don't, I'll put it this way, Mike, because as we barrel toward 10 years of doing

00:03:08 ◼   ► this, it's not work to stay connected to Mike.

00:03:14 ◼   ► It's just, I mean, it's just nice.

00:03:16 ◼   ► It's, I'm not, there's no strategies involved to keep it fresh.

00:03:21 ◼   ► It just is good.

00:03:23 ◼   ► That's what I say.

00:03:24 ◼   ► I'm sorry.

00:03:24 ◼   ► It's kind of a non-answer.

00:03:25 ◼   ► It's like, no, that, that, that wore my heart.

00:03:28 ◼   ► That was your gift to me on this 500th episode.

00:03:30 ◼   ► I give that to you.

00:03:31 ◼   ► What I'll say is I couldn't imagine doing this show of literally anybody else.

00:03:34 ◼   ► This is the only person I've wanted to show with is you.

00:03:36 ◼   ► Like, you know, we are a great partnership.

00:03:38 ◼   ► We work very well together.

00:03:42 ◼   ► We compliment each other in the right ways.

00:03:45 ◼   ► Look, to say that we never get annoyed at each other would be wrong.

00:03:48 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:03:49 ◼   ► We get frustrated.

00:03:49 ◼   ► You hear us get frustrated at each other on the episodes.

00:03:52 ◼   ► But we're professionals as well as friends.

00:03:55 ◼   ► And I think that that combination can allow you to work together for this period of time.

00:04:01 ◼   ► And we might say some of this again, if we talk about this coming up in September when

00:04:07 ◼   ► it's 10 years of doing this, but I'll just say now that I also always appreciate the

00:04:12 ◼   ► fact that when I was leaving my job of many, many years and wanted to do a podcast.

00:04:18 ◼   ► It was like one of my primary goals was like, well, when I leave my job, one of the things

00:04:22 ◼   ► I'm going to need to do is do a podcast.

00:04:23 ◼   ► And I need a partner for that.

00:04:26 ◼   ► And I wanted it to be you.

00:04:28 ◼   ► And you already had connected and we're starting this network and all those things.

00:04:34 ◼   ► And so once again, I will say also thank you for agreeing to do this podcast because logically,

00:04:40 ◼   ► I think you could have said it's one too many podcasts and you didn't.

00:04:46 ◼   ► So thank you for that.

00:04:47 ◼   ► I wasn't going to turn that opportunity down.

00:04:49 ◼   ► And I feel like it was just a thing.

00:04:51 ◼   ► It was just like a way.

00:04:53 ◼   ► And I think this has become better and better over time of how we split.

00:04:58 ◼   ► This show is like different to all the other shows I do.

00:05:00 ◼   ► The things that you do, like it is different.

00:05:01 ◼   ► It's its own thing.

00:05:03 ◼   ► And I also think different to most of the other stuff that's out there.

00:05:06 ◼   ► Of course, you're going to have to do a little bit of this today.

00:05:08 ◼   ► It is our 500 episodes, so we're going to be a bit navel-gizzy.

00:05:11 ◼   ► But we have some big topics to talk about.

00:05:13 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Ben for sending in that lovely snow talk question.

00:05:16 ◼   ► I've been sitting on that one for a little while,

00:05:18 ◼   ► because I thought it would be good for an episode like this.

00:05:20 ◼   ► Some follow up.

00:05:22 ◼   ► So on last week's episode, you said you were going to stuff your Vision Pro into a backpack

00:05:27 ◼   ► and cover it with some t-shirts.

00:05:28 ◼   ► And I just wanted to know how that went for you.

00:05:30 ◼   ► Don't forget the socks.

00:05:32 ◼   ► The answer is, after that episode, I thought that it was a stupid idea.

00:05:38 ◼   ► But my inherent cheapness kicked in, right?

00:05:41 ◼   ► Which is like I didn't want to buy an expensive bag.

00:05:43 ◼   ► And so what I ended up doing is buying a super cheap bag or a super cheap case.

00:05:50 ◼   ► The one that Casey List bought.

00:05:52 ◼   ► Ah, because Casey bought it.

00:05:54 ◼   ► And it's like a $25 case or whatever.

00:05:57 ◼   ► It's not a $100 or $200 or $300 case.

00:06:00 ◼   ► And he said it's perfectly adequate.

00:06:02 ◼   ► And I mean, it's clearly a meta quest case, but it works.

00:06:07 ◼   ► And all the pieces are velcro.

00:06:08 ◼   ► So you can kind of like move it around and get the dimensions to be a little bit close.

00:06:12 ◼   ► So that's what I traveled with.

00:06:13 ◼   ► I did put it in a dumb case that fits in my backpack and was not stuffing socks around

00:06:20 ◼   ► the eye holes, which is what I realized after we talked that that was probably a stupid idea.

00:06:25 ◼   ► I'm so happy you got something.

00:06:29 ◼   ► You know, I saw Casey's case because me and Casey got to spend some time together in New York.

00:06:34 ◼   ► He came and surprised me, which was wonderful.

00:06:35 ◼   ► He's a good friend.

00:06:36 ◼   ► See, he's a good friend.

00:06:37 ◼   ► He came all that way just to see you.

00:06:38 ◼   ► He's a good friend.

00:06:39 ◼   ► He's a good friend.

00:06:39 ◼   ► And he had that case.

00:06:40 ◼   ► And I was like, what are you doing?

00:06:41 ◼   ► I was just like, just get the case.

00:06:44 ◼   ► But to be honest, review, I'm just happy you had a case.

00:06:47 ◼   ► A case.

00:06:48 ◼   ► That's what I was going for.

00:06:49 ◼   ► Baseline.

00:06:50 ◼   ► Anything.

00:06:50 ◼   ► Just anything.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Just a case.

00:06:52 ◼   ► Yes.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Bill wrote in to say, hey, Jason, there's a company in San Francisco.

00:06:58 ◼   ► I'm sure you know them, Waterfield bags and they make a case of their own SF bags.

00:07:02 ◼   ► So this case, I saw people, I saw this reference as like a cheaper option.

00:07:06 ◼   ► It's still not cheap.

00:07:07 ◼   ► It's like $180.

00:07:08 ◼   ► But what looks cool about this case is it is much smaller physically than Apple's.

00:07:15 ◼   ► So if that's what you're looking for, then.

00:07:19 ◼   ► It looks good.

00:07:19 ◼   ► And I have some of their, I've used some of their stuff over the years and it's very high quality.

00:07:24 ◼   ► It's good stuff.

00:07:24 ◼   ► They sold out immediately.

00:07:26 ◼   ► Yes.

00:07:27 ◼   ► Of course.

00:07:27 ◼   ► When they announced this product.

00:07:29 ◼   ► So it wasn't really an option for me.

00:07:30 ◼   ► I did think about it.

00:07:31 ◼   ► If they had been available, I might have bought one.

00:07:34 ◼   ► But it's not too bad.

00:07:35 ◼   ► Like if you order it now, it ships middle of March.

00:07:38 ◼   ► So that's good.

00:07:39 ◼   ► For this trip, I just thought the Casey case is good in the sense that it exists and was cheap.

00:07:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:48 ◼   ► And if, and I really felt like, well, first off, I got Casey to say it's fine.

00:07:52 ◼   ► And then I thought, well, I'll take a flyer on it.

00:07:54 ◼   ► Casey says it's fine and if, you know, if it doesn't work out, I can just get something

00:08:01 ◼   ► else because it was relatively cheap.

00:08:03 ◼   ► But what I didn't want to do, and you know, that Apple case, I know people love it.

00:08:06 ◼   ► I looked at it and I'm like, I saw one in person a couple of times and it just doesn't

00:08:11 ◼   ► do it for me.

00:08:11 ◼   ► It doesn't do it for me.

00:08:13 ◼   ► Everybody else, everybody can be different.

00:08:14 ◼   ► So I'm happy to have my little cheap thing that I can put it in.

00:08:17 ◼   ► So it doesn't rattle around and have like, I don't know, chocolate melt on it or something.

00:08:23 ◼   ► Right.

00:08:23 ◼   ► Like it's fine.

00:08:24 ◼   ► It's good.

00:08:24 ◼   ► It's enough for now.

00:08:26 ◼   ► Jonathan wrote in to say, I feel most of the questions in the segment talking about Vision

00:08:32 ◼   ► Pro sizing are answered well enough by Apple in a documentation that they put together,

00:08:36 ◼   ► including the question of when should I use the other cushion and specific fit issues

00:08:41 ◼   ► that are fixed to specific adjustment changes or light seal or light seal cushions and even

00:08:45 ◼   ► what the markings mean and what to look for.

00:08:47 ◼   ► So Apple put together a knowledge base article about fitment of the Vision Pro because we

00:08:52 ◼   ► were talking about that.

00:08:53 ◼   ► And there's some stuff in here that is useful for sure.

00:08:56 ◼   ► But one of the things that I find frustrating about this article is they're referencing

00:09:03 ◼   ► the fact that like, maybe you should, if something doesn't fit right, you should get a different

00:09:07 ◼   ► piece, right?

00:09:07 ◼   ► Like maybe a different light seal or something.

00:09:09 ◼   ► But that's just not a thing you can do.

00:09:11 ◼   ► You can't just do that.

00:09:12 ◼   ► You can only buy the ones that Apple will let you buy.

00:09:16 ◼   ► And like, I'll say again, like I'm here.

00:09:18 ◼   ► Hi, my name is Mike Hurley and I'm here again with like everybody else, with another

00:09:23 ◼   ► like just personal experience thing that happened to me.

00:09:27 ◼   ► So I have two light seals.

00:09:30 ◼   ► I think I got like a 21 and a 25.

00:09:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:34 ◼   ► The 21 was what I, which is when I bought the thing and when I bought, I bought, I put

00:09:40 ◼   ► my order in and I put my prescription lens order in separately.

00:09:43 ◼   ► And when I did that, it was like, hey, you're going to need a 25 for this.

00:09:48 ◼   ► And the reason is I read about it.

00:09:50 ◼   ► Some people, in some instances, if you have lenses, they recommend a different light seal

00:09:55 ◼   ► for distance.

00:09:56 ◼   ► Today, I thought I would try the original one, the smaller one, I guess, the 21 with

00:10:03 ◼   ► my lenses in.

00:10:03 ◼   ► And I actually find it more comfortable.

00:10:05 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:10:06 ◼   ► Like, and also I have less of the tunnel vision thing.

00:10:10 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

00:10:11 ◼   ► That's the idea is you get a little closer.

00:10:13 ◼   ► I mean, my feedback to Jonathan is, is, I mean, it's great that they have documentation,

00:10:17 ◼   ► but that doesn't help you if you don't have the sizes.

00:10:19 ◼   ► Because what you, what you need to do is try them on.

00:10:21 ◼   ► I can read lots of documentation about like how, you know, how, like, if you're online

00:10:25 ◼   ► and you want to buy, let's say a hat, but it could be anything, pants, a shirt, and

00:10:31 ◼   ► they have a little thing that says size information and you click on it and they're like, oh,

00:10:35 ◼   ► it's this many inches or millimeters or centimeters or whatever you want miles around.

00:10:42 ◼   ► And I think to myself, okay, I don't know my measurement.

00:10:47 ◼   ► I don't know where that measurement is taken.

00:10:49 ◼   ► I don't know how to do it properly.

00:10:51 ◼   ► And what you really want to do is try on a bunch of different hats or t-shirts and find

00:10:55 ◼   ► the one that fits.

00:10:56 ◼   ► And if you're at an Apple store where they theoretically have every size, the people

00:11:00 ◼   ► at the Apple store should be pretty well trained to bring them all out and step you through

00:11:04 ◼   ► it and figure out which one fits and ask you the right questions.

00:11:08 ◼   ► And that's my complaint is that I don't think that they've been well trained in that

00:11:11 ◼   ► at all and that they need to be better at that.

00:11:13 ◼   ► And I think it's the fault of people in Apple retail for focusing on the demo experience

00:11:18 ◼   ► and not focusing on the fit experience.

00:11:20 ◼   ► And I think that's why it's frustrating.

00:11:22 ◼   ► I went to my local Apple store.

00:11:24 ◼   ► They didn't have the 21.

00:11:27 ◼   ► I ended up, and this is the other thing I think I mentioned is you can't just order

00:11:32 ◼   ► the other size.

00:11:32 ◼   ► If you're doing a swap, you have to actually go through a series of questions, which you

00:11:39 ◼   ► can game to get the one that you want.

00:11:41 ◼   ► Anyway, I ended up with a, what is it?

00:11:43 ◼   ► 15, 14, the one that's one, believe it or not, one size down from the 21.

00:11:48 ◼   ► And I got that and it was terrible.

00:11:51 ◼   ► It was put all the pressure on my cheekbones, much worse experience than the 25 that I originally

00:11:59 ◼   ► got.

00:11:59 ◼   ► So I actually went back to the 25 and I'm going to send the 15 back because it doesn't

00:12:04 ◼   ► fit.

00:12:04 ◼   ► But this is silly.

00:12:06 ◼   ► It's silly.

00:12:09 ◼   ► When I was in the Apple store, they should have been able to walk me through multiple

00:12:12 ◼   ► ones and instead they just sort of like took one and said, how's this different?

00:12:16 ◼   ► And I went, I don't know.

00:12:17 ◼   ► I can't tell.

00:12:17 ◼   ► And they're like, well, all right, maybe you can get that one.

00:12:20 ◼   ► And that was the end of it.

00:12:21 ◼   ► So it's just, it was really lacking.

00:12:23 ◼   ► I appreciate that there's documentation.

00:12:24 ◼   ► I mentioned Apple store employees also got a bunch of tips about sizing, but it doesn't

00:12:30 ◼   ► feel like they've been trained in like, here's how you do it.

00:12:33 ◼   ► And instead, like I distinctly got the impression that they were kind of making it up.

00:12:37 ◼   ► And I w and again, frustrating that they're supposed to be the experts, but I was driving

00:12:40 ◼   ► it and I didn't feel like that was how that was supposed to go.

00:12:44 ◼   ► And that I would have had to be like, no, no, no, bring me more light seals.

00:12:47 ◼   ► I want to try all the light seals.

00:12:49 ◼   ► I didn't want to be that guy.

00:12:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:51 ◼   ► I feel like this is one of those things where it will get better over time.

00:12:55 ◼   ► All right.

00:12:56 ◼   ► But like it is just a point of saying that like right now it is like a little bit of

00:13:00 ◼   ► a black box.

00:13:01 ◼   ► You're like Zach pointed out something in the chat that I didn't know.

00:13:05 ◼   ► The, you can order different light seals online, but you need to know what number you've got

00:13:09 ◼   ► to know the number, right?

00:13:10 ◼   ► You got to know the number.

00:13:11 ◼   ► How do you know?

00:13:12 ◼   ► And like it's.

00:13:12 ◼   ► Cause then you end up with these scenarios, which I've already seen some of this stuff

00:13:16 ◼   ► where like there is Reddit threads.

00:13:18 ◼   ► It's like, we got the perfect one.

00:13:19 ◼   ► So that stuff doesn't work like that either.

00:13:21 ◼   ► Right.

00:13:21 ◼   ► Cause people are different sizes and that's why it's complicated.

00:13:24 ◼   ► We finally found the right size for the one head that everybody on Reddit has.

00:13:28 ◼   ► It's like, no, that's not, that's not how it works.

00:13:30 ◼   ► Isn't it isn't it.

00:13:32 ◼   ► Anyway, I appreciate Jonathan's link to the support.

00:13:35 ◼   ► I appreciate that somebody in apple dog.

00:13:36 ◼   ► Here's the thing.

00:13:37 ◼   ► People in apple documentation obviously felt that this was an issue that needed to be documented.

00:13:41 ◼   ► However, at the store, the experience that at least I had was not as good as that.

00:13:48 ◼   ► As we've said last week, and I feel like I'm going to keep saying this.

00:13:51 ◼   ► The vision pro is like the most, your mileage may vary product does ever exist.

00:13:56 ◼   ► It's like a Rorschach test because literally everybody sees something different because

00:14:00 ◼   ► everybody has a different, I mean, I mean, you know this, you've seen some of the discourse

00:14:04 ◼   ► about this.

00:14:04 ◼   ► It's not just that like our heads are different sizes and our faces are different shapes,

00:14:09 ◼   ► but it is that not, and it's not just that our eyes have different things about them

00:14:14 ◼   ► that require adjustment.

00:14:15 ◼   ► It's also that like our brains process visual stimulus differently.

00:14:21 ◼   ► Like different people process it differently.

00:14:25 ◼   ► It's yes, it's the most one, you know, uh, your mileage may vary product apple has ever

00:14:29 ◼   ► made for sure.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Jana wrote in to say, Jason mentioned that personas on the vision pro could have the

00:14:35 ◼   ► benefit of not having to do your makeup to be as presentable as your usual self on a

00:14:39 ◼   ► video call.

00:14:40 ◼   ► But unfortunately for me, this is disappointingly untrue.

00:14:44 ◼   ► I scan myself wearing my fairly typical makeup, including eyeshadow and non-natural color

00:14:49 ◼   ► purple, uh, in a non-natural color purple, and the persona doesn't include it at all.

00:14:54 ◼   ► Maybe the cameras are taking a depth map and applying a skin color as a skin.

00:14:59 ◼   ► This is interesting to me because my persona has accurate blemishes on my skin.

00:15:06 ◼   ► So why wouldn't it capture makeup?

00:15:09 ◼   ► Like I find that to be peculiar.

00:15:11 ◼   ► I would like to know from more people about this.

00:15:13 ◼   ► I wonder if it's because the eyes are animated and therefore the eyes are more generic.

00:15:17 ◼   ► Like if there's a part of your core, your, uh, what is this product driven us to Mike?

00:15:22 ◼   ► I'm about, I'm just going to say it.

00:15:24 ◼   ► So part of your like core face, your, your central face is, um, is, is more accurately

00:15:32 ◼   ► rendered.

00:15:32 ◼   ► And then that things that are more peripheral or more animated or not, I don't know.

00:15:36 ◼   ► It's, this is great to hear from Jana.

00:15:38 ◼   ► Cause I'm surprised because we did see that, that your eyes didn't look correct, right?

00:15:43 ◼   ► Like that, that there was something going on, but it wasn't what's actually goes on in

00:15:47 ◼   ► your eyes.

00:15:48 ◼   ► I mean, what you said is, is it looked like one of my eyes was a different color.

00:15:52 ◼   ► And I get that a lot.

00:15:53 ◼   ► It, it, it, it is maybe slightly, but a lot, mostly it's optical illusion because one of

00:15:57 ◼   ► my pupils is bigger than the other.

00:15:59 ◼   ► Some of the time, not all the time.

00:16:00 ◼   ► If I make a new persona, what I need to do is get the light exactly right so that my

00:16:04 ◼   ► pupils are equal sizes and then we won't have this conversation.

00:16:07 ◼   ► But yeah, it, it represented it.

00:16:09 ◼   ► I don't know if it represented it entirely accurately, but it did represent it in a way.

00:16:13 ◼   ► Um, but this is a good question, right?

00:16:15 ◼   ► Like, does it have, uh, things like the color of the eyeshadow?

00:16:19 ◼   ► Does it say, uh, I'm not going to render that.

00:16:22 ◼   ► If you've got eyeliner, does it render the eyeliner?

00:16:24 ◼   ► I, I mentioned this before.

00:16:26 ◼   ► I have a friend who, um, when she's on a zoom, she uses, believe it or not, zoom has this

00:16:32 ◼   ► feature.

00:16:32 ◼   ► Zoom has a virtual eyebrows feature.

00:16:34 ◼   ► True story.

00:16:36 ◼   ► And you can just add eyebrows in zoom.

00:16:39 ◼   ► And, uh, like, uh, so there's lots of ways you can approach this, but apple, can I ask

00:16:43 ◼   ► some questions about this?

00:16:45 ◼   ► Maybe you can answer, but I can't answer them.

00:16:47 ◼   ► Does this friend have no eyebrows?

00:16:50 ◼   ► Uh, I think she's unhappy with her eyebrows and so zoom replaced new eyebrows on top of

00:16:54 ◼   ► your existing eyebrows where otherwise you might do makeup or something.

00:16:58 ◼   ► Okay.

00:16:58 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:16:59 ◼   ► Anyway, zoom is just for eyebrows.

00:17:03 ◼   ► Like nothing else.

00:17:04 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:17:05 ◼   ► It's one of those things where it's like an overlay.

00:17:07 ◼   ► It's like an Instagram, like a, like a Snapchat filter kind of thing.

00:17:11 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:17:12 ◼   ► Eyebrows.

00:17:12 ◼   ► It's virtual eyebrows.

00:17:13 ◼   ► I didn't get it.

00:17:14 ◼   ► It's how do they work?

00:17:16 ◼   ► So, um, this is a great data point for Jana and I really do wonder like what gets picked

00:17:21 ◼   ► up and is it that, uh, she mentioned non-natural color, right?

00:17:24 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe there's something about that where, um, there are blemishes and things

00:17:30 ◼   ► that they will try to do, especially if it's in your central face.

00:17:33 ◼   ► My central face.

00:17:34 ◼   ► My blemishes are on my central face.

00:17:35 ◼   ► So I will agree.

00:17:36 ◼   ► But if you're in a, it's part of your peripheral face and it's also a non-natural color, maybe

00:17:40 ◼   ► that they just dropped that.

00:17:41 ◼   ► What are we talking about at this point?

00:17:45 ◼   ► You know, central face, peripheral face.

00:17:48 ◼   ► Yeah, that's right.

00:17:50 ◼   ► It's more and more of a suburb of your face.

00:17:51 ◼   ► It's an face.

00:17:53 ◼   ► And we need, we need to eject from the Apple vision pro followup and go into the land of

00:17:58 ◼   ► sensibility.

00:17:59 ◼   ► Welcome back to DMA today.

00:18:01 ◼   ► Today.

00:18:03 ◼   ► Everybody's so excited about DMA today where we try and make sense of what's going on with

00:18:07 ◼   ► the DMA today.

00:18:09 ◼   ► And so the way that DMA today has gone so far is how it's going to continue.

00:18:13 ◼   ► I'm going to read some feedback about the core technology fee in this very slow argument

00:18:18 ◼   ► and debate we're having with our audience, which I love.

00:18:21 ◼   ► And then I have some news for you.

00:18:22 ◼   ► Daniel writes in to say regarding the core technology fee.

00:18:25 ◼   ► I think the main problem referring to apps never having been built for the app store

00:18:30 ◼   ► and therefore nothing has changed is that part of my reading on the DMA is, is it supposed

00:18:35 ◼   ► to clamp down on Apple's monopoly on deciding who or what can be on your phone as opposed

00:18:41 ◼   ► to it only being about the money.

00:18:43 ◼   ► With this logic, Apple has made sure that a whole bunch of apps can realistically never

00:18:48 ◼   ► be on the platform anyway.

00:18:49 ◼   ► After last week where I, where I pushed back on listeners, I'm just going to say, Daniel,

00:18:54 ◼   ► I agree.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Thank you for your feedback.

00:18:56 ◼   ► I do, but like, you know, we're, I feel like we get into the core of it and this is the

00:19:01 ◼   ► core of the core.

00:19:02 ◼   ► This is like a good point, right?

00:19:04 ◼   ► There's like, if these are apps, this is supposed to be a situation where apps that couldn't

00:19:08 ◼   ► exist before can exist, but they still can't exist because they can't afford to exist.

00:19:14 ◼   ► Right.

00:19:15 ◼   ► I think it goes, it gets to the question, which I think is a question that we can argue

00:19:20 ◼   ► about the legal points and the details of it and all of that.

00:19:22 ◼   ► But I think sometimes what you have to do is say, what was the intended purpose of all

00:19:27 ◼   ► of this?

00:19:27 ◼   ► And did that happen?

00:19:30 ◼   ► And that, that I think is, is worth considering.

00:19:34 ◼   ► Got a good point from Mathaus who says, for open source apps that do not intend to make

00:19:40 ◼   ► any money, they could publish through a charity.

00:19:43 ◼   ► There are multiple existing open source charities that could publish open source apps.

00:19:48 ◼   ► Since the code is open source, anyone can publish it and charities do not pay the technology

00:19:53 ◼   ► fee.

00:19:53 ◼   ► Love it.

00:19:54 ◼   ► That's good.

00:19:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:55 ◼   ► I think nonprofits and educational institutions don't pay the technology fee.

00:19:59 ◼   ► So I mean, a charity, I think it's nonprofits as well.

00:20:04 ◼   ► So, so you literally a nonprofit for open source iPhone apps would not pay the CTF.

00:20:10 ◼   ► And that could create an open source store.

00:20:12 ◼   ► Like that could be a way around it.

00:20:13 ◼   ► Right.

00:20:14 ◼   ► I suppose so.

00:20:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:16 ◼   ► And Matt writes in to say regarding the core technology fee, maybe this should not apply

00:20:21 ◼   ► if Apple has rejected an application.

00:20:23 ◼   ► The developer gave Apple the opportunity to have the app in their app store, but then

00:20:28 ◼   ► they chose not to have it.

00:20:30 ◼   ► It seems fair that they should then not, then they should not be able to make any money

00:20:35 ◼   ► from it.

00:20:35 ◼   ► I love this thought.

00:20:36 ◼   ► Love it.

00:20:37 ◼   ► Love it, right?

00:20:38 ◼   ► If you said you don't want it, then you shouldn't make anything.

00:20:41 ◼   ► You said you don't want it.

00:20:42 ◼   ► You want nothing to do with it.

00:20:44 ◼   ► Get Europe on the phone.

00:20:44 ◼   ► That's a good one.

00:20:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Love it.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Love it.

00:20:47 ◼   ► Now we move into the news portion.

00:20:49 ◼   ► Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer says that Microsoft will not bring game pass to iOS

00:20:54 ◼   ► as they feel that they cannot effectively monetize it with Apple's rules.

00:20:58 ◼   ► This is a quote.

00:20:59 ◼   ► "I'm a big fan of how Windows works, and you've got a Microsoft store on Windows, you've got

00:21:03 ◼   ► Steam, you've got the Epic Game Store, you've got GOG.

00:21:06 ◼   ► You have alternatives, and I think alternative ways for people to buy things creates goodness

00:21:11 ◼   ► for consumers and creators.

00:21:13 ◼   ► I think the largest platform for gamers, which is mobile, should have the same."

00:21:16 ◼   ► Basically, Microsoft don't want to give Apple any money.

00:21:19 ◼   ► I don't think it matters what they do.

00:21:21 ◼   ► They don't want to give them anything.

00:21:22 ◼   ► I've seen some point out that it's ironic that Microsoft don't do this with Xbox, but

00:21:28 ◼   ► I do think this comes back to the age-old question of how you define what an iPhone

00:21:32 ◼   ► is, and I do not think that an iPhone is in the same category as a games console.

00:21:37 ◼   ► Personally, I think it's in the same category as a PC or a Mac, but again, your mileage

00:21:43 ◼   ► may vary.

00:21:44 ◼   ► Your mileage may vary wherever it hits you on your general face area.

00:21:49 ◼   ► I was thinking about this the other day.

00:21:56 ◼   ► I think it's fair to say...

00:21:57 ◼   ► I was actually thinking about this while I was listening to last week's episode of Connected,

00:22:01 ◼   ► where you guys were talking about the post-PC era and how we're in it in the sense that

00:22:06 ◼   ► there's not going to be a new PC made.

00:22:08 ◼   ► We have PCs, but nobody's going to say, "Oh, we got a new device that's a PC."

00:22:14 ◼   ► What I was thinking about is, really what you're saying is, in the infancy of computers,

00:22:20 ◼   ► we created these computers that were general-purpose computers, where the idea was they can do

00:22:25 ◼   ► whatever.

00:22:25 ◼   ► We don't know what they're for.

00:22:26 ◼   ► Just program them to do whatever, and they'll do that.

00:22:29 ◼   ► The way that the iPhone and the iPad and other devices like that are like game consoles is

00:22:35 ◼   ► in the sense that they're not general purpose, in the sense that they are more controlled

00:22:40 ◼   ► and more focused, and they're not like, "You can just do whatever.

00:22:44 ◼   ► It's wide open."

00:22:45 ◼   ► Apple has chosen to build those platforms, and really, most stuff now is much more like

00:22:51 ◼   ► lockdown.

00:22:52 ◼   ► In that way, I think it is like it.

00:22:54 ◼   ► I don't think it's the same as it.

00:22:56 ◼   ► I'm going to reserve a little bit of judgment for Phil Spencer talking about Windows and

00:23:02 ◼   ► not talking about how it works on Xbox, because I do think that he's talking out of...

00:23:06 ◼   ► Was it both sides of his mouth?

00:23:08 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:23:09 ◼   ► I do think it's kind of rich that he talks about openness when he's got a platform that's

00:23:13 ◼   ► closed and locked down, but at the same time, it doesn't mean that he's not making some

00:23:17 ◼   ► decent points.

00:23:18 ◼   ► I completely agree.

00:23:18 ◼   ► There is some irony there, but it comes back to that question.

00:23:23 ◼   ► I think at the point now where it seems like basically every device or platform is locked

00:23:32 ◼   ► down to some degree, right?

00:23:33 ◼   ► We are in the post-PC era.

00:23:35 ◼   ► Except for Mac and Windows, yeah.

00:23:37 ◼   ► You've got to look at what is the purpose of the device, I think, a little bit more.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:23:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:42 ◼   ► What is the...

00:23:43 ◼   ► It's not general purpose, then what is it?

00:23:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:47 ◼   ► If you just do one thing, then you're maybe a little bit more specific.

00:23:52 ◼   ► But if you purport to do lots of different things and you're trying to fill lots of different

00:23:57 ◼   ► areas, then you're creating a more open, in theory, platform.

00:24:00 ◼   ► Not open in the sense of open.

00:24:02 ◼   ► Right.

00:24:02 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

00:24:03 ◼   ► The way you define it also defines sort of how you should be judged by it.

00:24:08 ◼   ► Anyway, my thought here is mostly that I'm disappointed by this, that Microsoft has decided

00:24:12 ◼   ► not to do this because Apple did change the rules and it feels like Microsoft was headed

00:24:15 ◼   ► there and then Apple said it's against the rules.

00:24:18 ◼   ► Now Apple has said it is okay and Microsoft says, "Well, no.

00:24:21 ◼   ► We're not going to do it."

00:24:22 ◼   ► What I don't understand is why Microsoft are not bringing Game Pass and just not putting

00:24:28 ◼   ► the ability for people to sign up.

00:24:30 ◼   ► Why isn't...

00:24:32 ◼   ► Can't they just make a reader app?

00:24:33 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure they can make a reader app.

00:24:35 ◼   ► Right.

00:24:35 ◼   ► And I think that was what they were thinking of doing before.

00:24:37 ◼   ► And I don't know, I find it frustrating because this feels like it's not...

00:24:41 ◼   ► First off, a lot of this is getting conflated with the DMA and it's not the same.

00:24:45 ◼   ► That's a different conversation.

00:24:47 ◼   ► But even though we put it in DMA today, sorry everybody.

00:24:51 ◼   ► Well, I mean, he is also in the quote.

00:24:56 ◼   ► Like I took a bit...

00:24:57 ◼   ► He is talking about the DMA.

00:24:59 ◼   ► Right.

00:24:59 ◼   ► So this is the challenge is there's the DMA which they're against.

00:25:02 ◼   ► But the global allowance of game streaming services on iOS is not the DMA.

00:25:07 ◼   ► And that's the thing where I feel like Microsoft could just do that.

00:25:10 ◼   ► And I hope they reconsider at some point because I think that would be good for everyone.

00:25:16 ◼   ► Honestly, I see this as a similar thing to Mark Zuckerberg last week where everybody's

00:25:21 ◼   ► making a lot of points right now because they're trying to get the EU to force Apple to go

00:25:24 ◼   ► further.

00:25:25 ◼   ► To do more.

00:25:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree.

00:25:27 ◼   ► As mentioned previously, Epic are going to be bringing the Epic Game Store to iOS in

00:25:32 ◼   ► Europe, but they needed something pretty important to do that, which was an Apple developer account

00:25:37 ◼   ► because theirs was taken away.

00:25:39 ◼   ► Apple have reinstated Epic's developer account for the App Store.

00:25:44 ◼   ► So they will be able to bring the Epic Game Store and Fortnite to iOS in the European

00:25:48 ◼   ► Union in the not too distant future.

00:25:50 ◼   ► I'm not sure if technically they reinstated that account, but they have a subsidiary that

00:25:55 ◼   ► is in Sweden.

00:25:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:57 ◼   ► That is going to be their European publisher for their store and Fortnite in the EU.

00:26:05 ◼   ► And that's part of the rules of the European-influenced App Store environment, whatever we want to

00:26:13 ◼   ► call it, is if you're an entity in the EU, you can run these alternative app marketplaces.

00:26:18 ◼   ► So they have taken their Swedish entity and they're going to use that.

00:26:23 ◼   ► I think it is a reinstatement in spirit because I reckon if Epic tried to set up an account

00:26:28 ◼   ► before now, Apple would have not let them because they could have just kept doing that.

00:26:33 ◼   ► I think that's right.

00:26:34 ◼   ► But technically, I think it may be a new account.

00:26:36 ◼   ► But yes, in spirit, it is that.

00:26:37 ◼   ► The European Commission has determined that iMessage is not a dominant enough platform

00:26:43 ◼   ► to be regulated under the DMA.

00:26:45 ◼   ► This was something that needed to be set up and that's the case.

00:26:48 ◼   ► However, this isn't DMA related, but it's Europe related, so it's also in this category.

00:26:55 ◼   ► The European Commission has issued a 500 million euro fine to Apple for working

00:27:00 ◼   ► anti-competitively against Spotify for Apple Music.

00:27:04 ◼   ► This is the result of a complaint filed by Spotify in 2019.

00:27:08 ◼   ► I'm going to read from 9to5Mac.

00:27:10 ◼   ► Specifically, the EU believes Apple acted illegally in blocking music streaming apps

00:27:15 ◼   ► like Spotify from telling customers about other ways to subscribe to their services

00:27:19 ◼   ► and thereby evade Apple's commission on in-app purchases.

00:27:23 ◼   ► They are usually referred to as the App Store's anti-steering provisions.

00:27:27 ◼   ► The forthcoming EU judgment will not force Apple to permit alternative in-app payment methods,

00:27:33 ◼   ► but it will insist music streaming app developers can freely link out to their website to subscribe

00:27:38 ◼   ► online.

00:27:38 ◼   ► So the expectation is that this is more than the reader app rule, which is just one link,

00:27:44 ◼   ► right?

00:27:44 ◼   ► That the European Union is going to save the music streaming services specifically because

00:27:48 ◼   ► that's what this case is for.

00:27:49 ◼   ► You need to allow them to put links basically wherever they want.

00:27:53 ◼   ► Oh, and also you've got to give Spotify half a billion dollars a euros.

00:27:57 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:28:00 ◼   ► I mean, this is one of the things that I've always found the most offensive about Apple's

00:28:04 ◼   ► practices is when they set up...

00:28:06 ◼   ► There are places where they're like, we're just gardening our platform.

00:28:11 ◼   ► We're tending to our users' needs.

00:28:14 ◼   ► It's the moments when they're like, oh, but also we're going to make our own music service

00:28:20 ◼   ► or we're going to make our own bookstore and their bookstore doesn't have to play by the

00:28:24 ◼   ► rules that all the other bookstores do.

00:28:27 ◼   ► That's what really bothers me.

00:28:28 ◼   ► And we're going to price it the same, but we essentially make 30% more money than they

00:28:33 ◼   ► can make.

00:28:33 ◼   ► Than they could possibly make.

00:28:35 ◼   ► And therefore they can never come into our platform and we're the only ones who can have

00:28:40 ◼   ► this business model on our platform.

00:28:43 ◼   ► And that's the stuff that really irks me.

00:28:45 ◼   ► So I mean, 500 million euros is not going to hurt them really at all.

00:28:50 ◼   ► But it is a lot of money.

00:28:51 ◼   ► It is a lot of money.

00:28:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:53 ◼   ► But yes, to Apple, not a lot, but they also don't want to pay it.

00:28:56 ◼   ► But well, there you go.

00:28:58 ◼   ► Of course they don't.

00:28:59 ◼   ► That's what you get.

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00:30:22 ◼   ► - It's draft time, we're doing a draft today, woo!

00:30:26 ◼   ► - People, are they surprised, do they know?

00:30:29 ◼   ► Do they know, it's like, what did Apple, is Apple doing an event?

00:30:31 ◼   ► No, it's not that kind of draft.

00:30:32 ◼   ► - It's a draft of our own.

00:30:34 ◼   ► So for the last few years, every 100 episodes, we make a set of predictions for 100 episodes

00:30:42 ◼   ► from now.

00:30:43 ◼   ► So we started this with episode 300 in 2020, and we've done it again for episode 400,

00:30:49 ◼   ► and here we are for episode 500.

00:30:51 ◼   ► So we're gonna do two things today.

00:30:52 ◼   ► - It's the upgrade draft of the ages, woo!

00:30:54 ◼   ► - The draft of the ages.

00:30:55 ◼   ► We're gonna look back our predictions from episode 400, we're gonna grade them, and

00:31:02 ◼   ► then we're gonna look at our predictions, well, then we're gonna set some predictions

00:31:07 ◼   ► for episode 600.

00:31:09 ◼   ► - Yes, 600, mm-hmm.

00:31:11 ◼   ► - So let's go through these, so.

00:31:13 ◼   ► - All right.

00:31:13 ◼   ► - We'll do round one.

00:31:14 ◼   ► You said an iMac larger than 24 inches will exist.

00:31:18 ◼   ► - Don't you like my optimism?

00:31:20 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:31:21 ◼   ► - But it's not true, it didn't happen.

00:31:24 ◼   ► - Didn't happen.

00:31:24 ◼   ► - In fact, there was a press release.

00:31:25 ◼   ► - This one really didn't happen.

00:31:29 ◼   ► - It's not happening, Jason said, an attributed Apple executive.

00:31:34 ◼   ► - Then mine was an Apple car will not exist.

00:31:37 ◼   ► - I don't appreciate your lack of optimism, but you are correct.

00:31:42 ◼   ► - You said Apple TV Plus broadcast another live sport that is not baseball.

00:31:49 ◼   ► - MLS, baby.

00:31:50 ◼   ► - An entire league, not just a sport, they got all of it.

00:31:54 ◼   ► - They got all of it.

00:31:55 ◼   ► - And then I can't believe this one didn't happen.

00:31:58 ◼   ► My second pick was Apple TV Plus will include live programming that is not sports.

00:32:03 ◼   ► I was really surprised that they didn't do like a Christmas special or something.

00:32:06 ◼   ► - I know, right?

00:32:08 ◼   ► - Round three, you said an iPad will have a display larger than 12.9 inches.

00:32:14 ◼   ► - You know, like I'm a month away from this.

00:32:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're so close, so close.

00:32:19 ◼   ► - Month away.

00:32:19 ◼   ► - Maybe if we wouldn't, you know, we've definitely done some bonus episodes over

00:32:24 ◼   ► the last couple of years, right, where like drafts have happened and stuff.

00:32:28 ◼   ► If those wouldn't have happened, you might have actually gotten this one.

00:32:30 ◼   ► - I think I might've gotten four out of five.

00:32:33 ◼   ► - If it was at the end of March, at the end, and we'll get to it, but like I think I

00:32:40 ◼   ► would have gotten four out of five if this was the end of March, but it's not yet.

00:32:44 ◼   ► Can we do these every 110 episodes?

00:32:48 ◼   ► - Let's go through these because then I want to talk about this for a second.

00:32:51 ◼   ► All right, I said two more Apple hardware products will be called Studio.

00:32:55 ◼   ► That didn't happen.

00:32:56 ◼   ► - No, it didn't happen.

00:32:57 ◼   ► I love your idea though.

00:32:58 ◼   ► - I was really excited about Studio, but nothing else happened.

00:33:02 ◼   ► - Nope.

00:33:03 ◼   ► - Round four, somewhere in the world, Apple will allow users to sideload iOS apps.

00:33:09 ◼   ► - Okay, so this is so close to being because, okay, first off, there's the will allow.

00:33:21 ◼   ► And as you pointed out to me when we were talking about this, technically,

00:33:27 ◼   ► it hasn't happened yet.

00:33:28 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:33:28 ◼   ► - It happens in a couple of weeks.

00:33:31 ◼   ► - Uh-huh.

00:33:32 ◼   ► - And second, I use the word sideload, which is not technically what's going to happen.

00:33:37 ◼   ► - No, this specifically is not sideloading.

00:33:40 ◼   ► - Alternative app stores, but honestly, if I had said allow alternative app stores,

00:33:47 ◼   ► I would still not get it because it hasn't happened yet.

00:33:50 ◼   ► - It hasn't happened, this is so heartbreaking.

00:33:56 ◼   ► - WWDC has not returned to its pre-2020 style, which is true.

00:34:01 ◼   ► - Correct, absolutely, that was yours.

00:34:02 ◼   ► - And Apple Watch gets a new design.

00:34:05 ◼   ► - Apple Watch Ultra, baby.

00:34:06 ◼   ► - Which is, yes, it was the Apple Watch Ultra.

00:34:09 ◼   ► And I said external display support for iPad won't happen.

00:34:13 ◼   ► - It happened.

00:34:14 ◼   ► - It happened.

00:34:15 ◼   ► So that puts us at two-two.

00:34:17 ◼   ► - Two-two with no tiebreaker.

00:34:19 ◼   ► - Where if this was three weeks, four weeks from now, it would probably be four-two to you.

00:34:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, at least three-two, yeah.

00:34:27 ◼   ► We could have debated sideload, but it wouldn't have mattered, right?

00:34:30 ◼   ► Because there'll be a 13-inch iPad Pro or something, and that'll be enough.

00:34:35 ◼   ► Even though, I will say, that was not my intent, right?

00:34:37 ◼   ► Like those two picks, your studio and my 12.9 inches,

00:34:41 ◼   ► was both of us dreaming a 15-inch iPad studio.

00:34:44 ◼   ► We were dreaming that.

00:34:45 ◼   ► - Which, I mean, still might happen.

00:34:46 ◼   ► - Still might happen.

00:34:48 ◼   ► - We don't know, it could still happen.

00:34:49 ◼   ► - But it didn't, not today, not on February 19th, 2024,

00:34:54 ◼   ► when episode 500 happens.

00:34:55 ◼   ► And that's the point of it, is it's every 100 episodes.

00:34:59 ◼   ► So we're dealing with what will happen in slightly less than two years from now.

00:35:04 ◼   ► And I just missed it.

00:35:07 ◼   ► - I will say, because we're going to make our picks again in a minute,

00:35:11 ◼   ► there is something really weird about two years from now.

00:35:15 ◼   ► Because it's in the future, but it's not that far away.

00:35:19 ◼   ► Like it's actually pretty hard to make predictions for a two-year span.

00:35:24 ◼   ► Like five years is easy, one year is easy, two years, hard.

00:35:28 ◼   ► - Because you get run away with future, and then you're like,

00:35:30 ◼   ► "But wait, it's just two years from now."

00:35:32 ◼   ► Magical things can't, like Apple Car will ship.

00:35:36 ◼   ► It's like, "Mm, probably not in two years, probably not."

00:35:38 ◼   ► - Probably not.

00:35:38 ◼   ► So congratulations to us, we drew.

00:35:41 ◼   ► - Yes, two-two.

00:35:42 ◼   ► - We drew, we drew.

00:35:43 ◼   ► So let's, I know we've got a bunch.

00:35:46 ◼   ► - So close.

00:35:46 ◼   ► - Let's start off by saying we'll do five rounds.

00:35:49 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:35:50 ◼   ► - And I think we're going to have to flip a coin

00:35:53 ◼   ► to decide who goes first.

00:35:54 ◼   ► - I want you to go first.

00:35:56 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:35:56 ◼   ► - You're the existing champion of the regular draft,

00:36:01 ◼   ► and this one had no winner.

00:36:03 ◼   ► So I'm going to let you go first.

00:36:05 ◼   ► And that way I can have more time to think what I'm going to pick.

00:36:08 ◼   ► - All right, my first one is boring.

00:36:10 ◼   ► Tim Cook is still CEO of Apple.

00:36:12 ◼   ► - Oh, you know, I think in Upgrade Plus,

00:36:16 ◼   ► we'll talk about what we didn't pick.

00:36:17 ◼   ► But I have some Tim Cook ones that are not that.

00:36:22 ◼   ► Tim Cook is still CEO of Apple.

00:36:23 ◼   ► I, again, I'm going to admire your optimism there.

00:36:26 ◼   ► - I think.

00:36:27 ◼   ► - Good for you.

00:36:27 ◼   ► - This is the two-year thing, right?

00:36:29 ◼   ► - Two-year, I know.

00:36:32 ◼   ► - I think that he's not going anywhere

00:36:34 ◼   ► for a longer period of time than that.

00:36:36 ◼   ► - I don't know, I don't know.

00:36:39 ◼   ► I, okay, now I got to choose one.

00:36:44 ◼   ► What do I think?

00:36:47 ◼   ► I'm going to say, oh, wow.

00:36:52 ◼   ► Okay, I got one for you.

00:36:55 ◼   ► This is too good not to pick, so I'm going to pick it.

00:36:57 ◼   ► Apple apologizes for offensive or embarrassing content

00:37:02 ◼   ► that was generated by an Apple AI algorithm.

00:37:05 ◼   ► - This is going to be Tim Cook sitting down in front of a sofa.

00:37:15 ◼   ► He's like, "We're sorry."

00:37:18 ◼   ► You know, like one of those?

00:37:20 ◼   ► They're going to get like a, "We're sorry YouTube video."

00:37:22 ◼   ► - It's going to be a gate.

00:37:23 ◼   ► No, it's going to be an unnamed Apple source on background

00:37:27 ◼   ► saying that they feel bad and that it's been corrected.

00:37:30 ◼   ► But still, I just feel like, right?

00:37:33 ◼   ► They're about to unveil lots of AI stuff.

00:37:35 ◼   ► And it's like, isn't it inevitable

00:37:37 ◼   ► that something bad will happen and they'll apologize for it?

00:37:39 ◼   ► I think it is.

00:37:40 ◼   ► - I love it.

00:37:43 ◼   ► You've already gone more interesting than me

00:37:46 ◼   ► because again, my next round,

00:37:47 ◼   ► it's not particularly interesting.

00:37:48 ◼   ► I think within two years.

00:37:50 ◼   ► - This is why I lose all these drafts

00:37:51 ◼   ► as I try to be entertaining.

00:37:52 ◼   ► - But I appreciate it.

00:37:54 ◼   ► Revised Vision Pro hardware.

00:37:56 ◼   ► - Oh, again, I have a pick that says none.

00:38:00 ◼   ► - I think two years-ish is enough to see a hardware revision.

00:38:09 ◼   ► And I'm talking about the Vision Pro.

00:38:11 ◼   ► I'm not saying like vision or whatever,

00:38:14 ◼   ► but I think in that period, it will be enough time.

00:38:18 ◼   ► There is like a thought of mine

00:38:20 ◼   ► where I'm wondering how fast it will be

00:38:24 ◼   ► until that revision happens.

00:38:26 ◼   ► Like I don't think they would do a year over year

00:38:30 ◼   ► for this product, but for the first one,

00:38:33 ◼   ► maybe they do depending on, I don't know, right?

00:38:36 ◼   ► Like this is a conversation we'll have later on

00:38:38 ◼   ► about how much they could realistically change

00:38:41 ◼   ► or would want to change within a short period of time.

00:38:43 ◼   ► But I think within the next 100 weeks,

00:38:47 ◼   ► we will see Revised Vision Pro hardware.

00:38:50 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:38:50 ◼   ► I'm gonna go with a bummer pick and say one Apple Watch

00:38:56 ◼   ► no longer fits, at least one Apple Watch,

00:39:00 ◼   ► no longer fits the classic Apple Watch bands.

00:39:02 ◼   ► - Hmm, okay.

00:39:03 ◼   ► - I don't like it, but it feels like it might happen.

00:39:07 ◼   ► - Take it.

00:39:08 ◼   ► - I think this feels like something that has to happen at some point.

00:39:11 ◼   ► Like I just, I'm not saying I want it,

00:39:13 ◼   ► but I feel like it is an inevitability.

00:39:15 ◼   ► They can't keep that thing forever.

00:39:18 ◼   ► Like it's a certain point,

00:39:20 ◼   ► it is going to limit the design of the Apple Watch.

00:39:23 ◼   ► And as soon as that happens, they're gonna have to change it.

00:39:25 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:39:27 ◼   ► - I'm gonna go with an Apple Watch pick

00:39:29 ◼   ► and say that an Apple Watch gets a glucose monitor.

00:39:34 ◼   ► - Ah, that was on my list.

00:39:35 ◼   ► That was on my list.

00:39:37 ◼   ► That's a big, that's good.

00:39:40 ◼   ► I like how risky it is.

00:39:41 ◼   ► See, now you're entertaining.

00:39:44 ◼   ► Now you're entertaining.

00:39:45 ◼   ► - I don't know if it's gonna be entertaining,

00:39:47 ◼   ► but it's the thing.

00:39:48 ◼   ► - They're gonna make it happen, they're gonna do it.

00:39:50 ◼   ► That's great, that's great.

00:39:52 ◼   ► All right, I will see you your glucose monitor and raise you.

00:39:57 ◼   ► Apple Card or Apple Cash will expand to at least one more country.

00:40:02 ◼   ► - I think they need to find a partner first for the US.

00:40:05 ◼   ► - I'm just saying.

00:40:10 ◼   ► - I would like it.

00:40:10 ◼   ► - It's US only.

00:40:13 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:40:14 ◼   ► - It's still US only.

00:40:15 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:40:15 ◼   ► - It's been years now.

00:40:16 ◼   ► Come on, Apple.

00:40:18 ◼   ► - I'm gonna say for my fourth round pick,

00:40:22 ◼   ► there is still no larger iMac.

00:40:26 ◼   ► - Okay, all right.

00:40:28 ◼   ► Taking my prediction from 100 episodes ago

00:40:31 ◼   ► and just extending it into the future.

00:40:32 ◼   ► - I don't think it's--

00:40:33 ◼   ► - Now that Apple has said that they're not gonna do it,

00:40:36 ◼   ► you're saying, yeah, they're not gonna do it.

00:40:37 ◼   ► - They're not gonna do it.

00:40:38 ◼   ► - All right, okay, all right.

00:40:40 ◼   ► Okay, I'm gonna give you a Vision Pro pick

00:40:44 ◼   ► that you're probably, I don't know, maybe you'll like it.

00:40:46 ◼   ► It's broad.

00:40:49 ◼   ► I tried to do something detailed here

00:40:51 ◼   ► and I decided I wanted to go broad with this,

00:40:53 ◼   ► which is Apple will release some new input device product

00:40:59 ◼   ► designed for Vision OS.

00:41:00 ◼   ► - Oh, I like this.

00:41:03 ◼   ► - So it could be combo keyboard trackpad.

00:41:06 ◼   ► It could be hand tracker.

00:41:08 ◼   ► It could be thing you put on your wrist.

00:41:10 ◼   ► I don't know, something.

00:41:13 ◼   ► - Well, what is the Apple Pencil for Vision Pro?

00:41:17 ◼   ► Not that it's an Apple Pencil, but like--

00:41:19 ◼   ► - Maybe it's a pencil, just a regular pencil.

00:41:21 ◼   ► - Right, like something that I would like,

00:41:24 ◼   ► I would like to be able to walk up to,

00:41:26 ◼   ► like so in the Horizon work rooms on the MetaQuest,

00:41:32 ◼   ► you can use the controller as like a pen

00:41:34 ◼   ► to write on a fake whiteboard.

00:41:36 ◼   ► I would like to be able to do that with freeform.

00:41:39 ◼   ► Like Apple have this weird thing

00:41:40 ◼   ► where they're trying to do it with hand tracking,

00:41:41 ◼   ► but it's not very good.

00:41:42 ◼   ► I would like to be able to use freeform like a whiteboard,

00:41:45 ◼   ► walk up to it with my pencil or whatever

00:41:48 ◼   ► and just draw on it, that would be great.

00:41:49 ◼   ► - So this is my thought, this is my thought process here

00:41:52 ◼   ► is Apple chose to go with pure hand tracking.

00:41:55 ◼   ► Pure hand tracking, as good as Apple's hand tracking is

00:41:57 ◼   ► and it is good, it has a lot of limits.

00:42:00 ◼   ► The advantage of, I would say optional hand accessories

00:42:06 ◼   ► is precision and there are certain,

00:42:08 ◼   ► whether it's games or something like writing on a whiteboard,

00:42:12 ◼   ► a little extra precision is nice.

00:42:15 ◼   ► So whether it's yes, an Apple Pencil

00:42:18 ◼   ► or a little hand controller that you just put in your hand

00:42:21 ◼   ► and then you can do it and then it's much more precise.

00:42:23 ◼   ► I don't really know, but I just had this,

00:42:26 ◼   ► I think it's worth taking the chance of like,

00:42:28 ◼   ► maybe there's an accessory out there

00:42:30 ◼   ► that is an opportunity for them.

00:42:32 ◼   ► Now that they've shipped the product

00:42:33 ◼   ► and they're getting user feedback,

00:42:34 ◼   ► maybe there is something that they can do

00:42:36 ◼   ► to improve the Vision OS experience over the next two years.

00:42:38 ◼   ► - Are we gonna make this our final round?

00:42:41 ◼   ► - We could, or we could go one more, I don't care.

00:42:46 ◼   ► I got so many choices here.

00:42:47 ◼   ► - Let's do six.

00:42:48 ◼   ► - Okay, we'll do six, great.

00:42:49 ◼   ► - I'm gonna build on some of my picks from last time,

00:42:53 ◼   ► some of our picks from last time,

00:42:54 ◼   ► but this is something that I think is going to happen

00:42:58 ◼   ► at some point, so maybe it will happen

00:43:00 ◼   ► in the next two years.

00:43:02 ◼   ► Apple has another sport on TV plus.

00:43:04 ◼   ► - Another sport.

00:43:05 ◼   ► - Like there were rumors about Formula One.

00:43:08 ◼   ► I think Formula One still makes a lot of sense,

00:43:11 ◼   ► but I think there is enough tumult in sport rights

00:43:15 ◼   ► that at some point this is gonna happen

00:43:20 ◼   ► and I think Apple, they've shown their willingness

00:43:24 ◼   ► for sport, right?

00:43:25 ◼   ► They've obviously done a lot with Vision Pro.

00:43:28 ◼   ► Oh, sorry, with MLS and so I think,

00:43:31 ◼   ► and for Vision Pro, right?

00:43:32 ◼   ► They're gonna want more stuff.

00:43:34 ◼   ► So I think it could happen.

00:43:35 ◼   ► - Okay, I like it.

00:43:38 ◼   ► Let's do HomePod with a screen.

00:43:48 ◼   ► How about that?

00:43:49 ◼   ► HomePod with a screen.

00:43:52 ◼   ► I mean, you know, if it's not called HomePod,

00:43:55 ◼   ► we know what it is.

00:43:55 ◼   ► - We know what it is.

00:43:57 ◼   ► - We know what it is.

00:43:58 ◼   ► - It's a gentleman's agreement here.

00:44:00 ◼   ► - I would like that.

00:44:01 ◼   ► All right, final pick.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Okay, the iPhone Ultra is introduced.

00:44:10 ◼   ► - Ooh.

00:44:11 ◼   ► - So that's it, huh?

00:44:13 ◼   ► - That's it.

00:44:14 ◼   ► I mean, I think that there is one more attempt

00:44:19 ◼   ► at fixing the branding of the iPhone, right?

00:44:22 ◼   ► That they've had that issue with like the fourth iPhone.

00:44:25 ◼   ► I think that there is a sense to be made

00:44:27 ◼   ► for having four distinct iPhone models, right?

00:44:31 ◼   ► And that might actually help them

00:44:32 ◼   ► with their lineup a little bit more, right?

00:44:34 ◼   ► So iPhone Plus Pro Ultra.

00:44:39 ◼   ► Rather than this, like they've got the two Pros,

00:44:43 ◼   ► they're the regular iPhone and then they have another one.

00:44:46 ◼   ► So I think that this might give some consistency to the line,

00:44:49 ◼   ► allow them to push up in price a little bit more.

00:44:52 ◼   ► Ultra is a brand that they use.

00:44:54 ◼   ► I think that it's obviously,

00:44:56 ◼   ► and so I think this is gonna happen, iPhone Ultra.

00:44:58 ◼   ► - All right, I like it.

00:44:59 ◼   ► I'm gonna go with, I started weirder than I'm ending,

00:45:03 ◼   ► but I'm gonna go with a new standalone display from Apple.

00:45:08 ◼   ► - Lovely.

00:45:08 ◼   ► I would like that in a couple of weeks time.

00:45:10 ◼   ► - I mean, new or updated,

00:45:12 ◼   ► but the idea that it's been so long,

00:45:14 ◼   ► they did like the something else,

00:45:18 ◼   ► update something in the displays.

00:45:20 ◼   ► They're so slow with displays,

00:45:22 ◼   ► but I think if I give them 100 weeks,

00:45:23 ◼   ► maybe they could give me one, maybe, would be nice.

00:45:27 ◼   ► - We will check back in about two years from now

00:45:31 ◼   ► and see just how well did we fare.

00:45:34 ◼   ► - Join us in January of 2026.

00:45:37 ◼   ► - Wow, look forward to it everyone.

00:45:40 ◼   ► - This episode is brought to you by Delete.me.

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00:47:53 ◼   ► and the promo code UPGRADE20.

00:47:55 ◼   ► Our thanks to Delete.me

00:47:56 ◼   ► for their support of this show and Relay.fm.

00:47:59 ◼   ► So it's a big day in Six Colors land.

00:48:03 ◼   ► It is the 2023 Apple Report Card.

00:48:06 ◼   ► - It is.

00:48:07 ◼   ► - For people that are new around here, Jason,

00:48:09 ◼   ► what is the Six Colors Report Card?

00:48:11 ◼   ► - I ask a bunch of people who are mostly kind of media

00:48:18 ◼   ► or other people involved in discussing the Apple

00:48:23 ◼   ► on the internet, basically, to score Apple

00:48:27 ◼   ► in a bunch of categories from one to five

00:48:29 ◼   ► about what Apple did in the previous year.

00:48:32 ◼   ► It is a measurement of general sentiment.

00:48:34 ◼   ► I always use the phrase, it's the vibe in the room.

00:48:37 ◼   ► I think that anybody who's been following the conversation

00:48:40 ◼   ► for the last year will not be surprised by the outcome

00:48:43 ◼   ► because it is the people who have been having

00:48:47 ◼   ► the conversation, so it shouldn't be particularly shocking,

00:48:50 ◼   ► but it's a way for us to measure it

00:48:52 ◼   ► and compare it to previous years

00:48:55 ◼   ► and then get a bunch of commentary from those people

00:48:57 ◼   ► if they want to share commentary

00:48:59 ◼   ► that goes in a very long post on my website.

00:49:02 ◼   ► So more than 25,000 words of commentary

00:49:05 ◼   ► if people wanna wade through it or they can skim it

00:49:07 ◼   ► or they can ignore it, but also some numbers

00:49:11 ◼   ► and some changes over time just to get a sense

00:49:14 ◼   ► of sort of like, what are people in this sphere

00:49:17 ◼   ► thinking about Apple's performance in the last year?

00:49:19 ◼   ► - So what we're gonna do, I'm gonna run through

00:49:23 ◼   ► each of the categories.

00:49:25 ◼   ► We'll talk about the scores and their changes

00:49:28 ◼   ► and then give our own scores.

00:49:30 ◼   ► I submitted my information to the report card.

00:49:33 ◼   ► You included me, but you do not vote,

00:49:35 ◼   ► so I wanna get your votes today.

00:49:37 ◼   ► I really recommend people go check out the scorecard

00:49:40 ◼   ► 'cause there's so many great quotes

00:49:42 ◼   ► and also one of my favorite things that's happening

00:49:45 ◼   ► right now, which I'm sure you love too,

00:49:46 ◼   ► is people posting their full report cards on their websites.

00:49:50 ◼   ► That must be, I reckon, pretty good

00:49:51 ◼   ► for sending traffic over to you.

00:49:53 ◼   ► - That's great and I like that they do that

00:49:55 ◼   ► 'cause they have lots to say and they wanna say it

00:49:57 ◼   ► and I trim it down.

00:49:59 ◼   ► So I trim down like people send in like explanations

00:50:03 ◼   ► of why it's a certain score and I take out the,

00:50:06 ◼   ► like the details of like why they chose a number,

00:50:09 ◼   ► I don't put in there.

00:50:10 ◼   ► I'm not interested in that and I will remove some things

00:50:13 ◼   ► if it's redundant or if they didn't really have much to say.

00:50:15 ◼   ► I try to slim it down at least a little bit

00:50:17 ◼   ► and I'll also say if people are curious,

00:50:20 ◼   ► each section is, sometimes there are very funny placements

00:50:24 ◼   ► where one person says something

00:50:25 ◼   ► and they're immediately contradicted by somebody else.

00:50:27 ◼   ► I find those hilarious.

00:50:29 ◼   ► Every section is randomized.

00:50:30 ◼   ► So the sequence of the comments in the story per section

00:50:35 ◼   ► is random.

00:50:35 ◼   ► So I'm not doing the thing where there's a moment in there

00:50:40 ◼   ► where like everybody says how great Apple TV+ is

00:50:42 ◼   ► and the next person's like,

00:50:43 ◼   ► "There's nothing on Apple TV+."

00:50:45 ◼   ► Like, oh boy, wow.

00:50:46 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's all there for people who wanna spend

00:50:51 ◼   ► a lot of time reading words about Apple, it's there.

00:50:53 ◼   ► - So it's a score out of five.

00:50:55 ◼   ► Five is the maximum.

00:50:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, one to five.

00:50:57 ◼   ► - I would start with the Mac, which got a 4.2,

00:51:01 ◼   ► which was the same year over year.

00:51:03 ◼   ► I scored four for the Mac.

00:51:06 ◼   ► Really just because I think that the Mac

00:51:08 ◼   ► is just continuing to be in a very good spot.

00:51:12 ◼   ► If you think about the hardware,

00:51:16 ◼   ► in my opinion, it's like as best as it's been

00:51:18 ◼   ► in the entire time I've been following Apple

00:51:20 ◼   ► from capability and design and stuff like that.

00:51:23 ◼   ► Like there are no glaring issues, I feel.

00:51:26 ◼   ► I know that everybody has their own issues,

00:51:29 ◼   ► but this is my score, I think it's really good.

00:51:32 ◼   ► The only reason I wouldn't put it higher is

00:51:35 ◼   ► you kinda gotta reserve it

00:51:36 ◼   ► for if there's something new, right?

00:51:38 ◼   ► And there isn't this time.

00:51:41 ◼   ► We're in a bit of maintenance.

00:51:43 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, there's the Mac Pro

00:51:44 ◼   ► that didn't do anything more than the Mac Studio.

00:51:47 ◼   ► - Yep, yep, maybe I should have given it a five

00:51:48 ◼   ► because of the Mac Pro, but I didn't.

00:51:50 ◼   ► But I feel like where Apple is right now,

00:51:53 ◼   ► I think they've cleared basically everything up

00:51:55 ◼   ► and they put themselves in a real good position

00:51:58 ◼   ► for the continuing future of Apple Silicon.

00:52:00 ◼   ► So it feels like a very easy four for me.

00:52:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

00:52:05 ◼   ► I think four is a good number.

00:52:07 ◼   ► I don't think it was a perfect year,

00:52:08 ◼   ► but they are doing so well with the Mac.

00:52:10 ◼   ► It's riding so high.

00:52:12 ◼   ► And I feel like the report card,

00:52:14 ◼   ► a lot of people are very focused on what's new

00:52:19 ◼   ► and you'll see that with the iPad.

00:52:22 ◼   ► And I get it on one level,

00:52:23 ◼   ► but on another level, I feel like if the Mac lineup was not,

00:52:29 ◼   ► I mean, the Mac lineup,

00:52:30 ◼   ► we got two sets of MacBook Pros this year, right?

00:52:32 ◼   ► Like there's a lot going on in the Mac.

00:52:33 ◼   ► And yet at the same time, it was like,

00:52:35 ◼   ► there was not like a sea change.

00:52:37 ◼   ► It was mostly just sort of updates

00:52:39 ◼   ► and that's fine 'cause it's in a good place.

00:52:42 ◼   ► And so that carries some weight too.

00:52:44 ◼   ► So I would say four is a good number.

00:52:45 ◼   ► - The iPhone's 4.1 up from a 3.9.

00:52:50 ◼   ► I also gave it a four.

00:52:52 ◼   ► I think this is a very, very solid iPhone.

00:52:55 ◼   ► Like the iPhone revision we've got this year,

00:52:56 ◼   ► especially the Pro, especially the Pro Max.

00:52:59 ◼   ► I love the titanium.

00:53:01 ◼   ► I love the 5X camera.

00:53:03 ◼   ► USB-C has been a great addition,

00:53:05 ◼   ► but it's really just like a very solid refresh.

00:53:10 ◼   ► There has been nothing earth shattering.

00:53:13 ◼   ► So again, it's like,

00:53:14 ◼   ► I feel like this is as high as I could give a score

00:53:17 ◼   ► for this iPhone personally.

00:53:21 ◼   ► If you did, if I could have given it a 4.5,

00:53:24 ◼   ► I would have given it a 4.5.

00:53:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't let you do that.

00:53:27 ◼   ► That's kind of talk that I just removed from the story.

00:53:29 ◼   ► Right there, talking about the rating system.

00:53:31 ◼   ► - You can't edit me.

00:53:33 ◼   ► - I can't edit you.

00:53:34 ◼   ► No, I can't.

00:53:35 ◼   ► Jim, take that out.

00:53:36 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:53:39 ◼   ► The, yeah, yeah.

00:53:41 ◼   ► Again, I think four is probably what I would settle on too.

00:53:47 ◼   ► Part of me thinks the iPhone is really quiet,

00:53:51 ◼   ► but at the same time, the titanium details,

00:53:53 ◼   ► as funny as it is when I see the ads

00:53:55 ◼   ► and they're like, "Ooh, titanium."

00:53:56 ◼   ► I'm like, "Does it matter?"

00:53:57 ◼   ► The fact is, I love how that thing feels.

00:53:59 ◼   ► I don't use a case.

00:54:00 ◼   ► Every time I pick it up, I'm like,

00:54:01 ◼   ► "Oh, smooth, light, nice."

00:54:03 ◼   ► It's like, it's really a nice phone.

00:54:05 ◼   ► The Pro Max with the big telephoto is huge.

00:54:08 ◼   ► USB-C is good.

00:54:10 ◼   ► Bringing Dynamic Island to all the phone models

00:54:13 ◼   ► or all the mainstream phone models this year was great

00:54:15 ◼   ► 'cause I like the Dynamic Island as well.

00:54:18 ◼   ► So four seems about right.

00:54:20 ◼   ► Yup.

00:54:21 ◼   ► Now we move to, I think,

00:54:24 ◼   ► the category probably gonna get the most attention,

00:54:27 ◼   ► which is the iPad, which is a 2.4 down from a 3.0.

00:54:31 ◼   ► That's a bad grade.

00:54:32 ◼   ► I gave it a one,

00:54:33 ◼   ► and you didn't include my comment,

00:54:36 ◼   ► probably because it's all about scores,

00:54:38 ◼   ► but I'm gonna read my comment in its entirety

00:54:40 ◼   ► 'cause I feel this deeply.

00:54:42 ◼   ► If there was a zero on this list,

00:54:44 ◼   ► it's what I would have given.

00:54:45 ◼   ► Zero new hardware, zero compelling OS features.

00:54:48 ◼   ► They made some additions for iPhone parity

00:54:50 ◼   ► and fixed some issues, introduced a 16.

00:54:53 ◼   ► Feels like a pure maintenance year.

00:54:55 ◼   ► I'm hoping to give this score a five for 2024.

00:54:57 ◼   ► I see it.

00:55:00 ◼   ► You don't get a zero.

00:55:01 ◼   ► The iPad has just been a disappointment this year.

00:55:05 ◼   ► And honestly, I hope that it is.

00:55:10 ◼   ► It was a disappointing year

00:55:11 ◼   ► because 2024 is gonna be amazing,

00:55:14 ◼   ► and I'm gonna choose that optimism,

00:55:16 ◼   ► but I'm not gonna ignore what 2023 was,

00:55:19 ◼   ► which was bad for the iPad.

00:55:20 ◼   ► I think I'm gonna give this a three

00:55:29 ◼   ► because while I am also frustrated

00:55:33 ◼   ► at the process of iPad hardware being not updated,

00:55:39 ◼   ► and of course, the iPad Pro, the one that I use,

00:55:41 ◼   ► its last update was not really much of an update.

00:55:44 ◼   ► Either, so it's really been treading water

00:55:46 ◼   ► for a very long time.

00:55:47 ◼   ► At the same time, I think there are a bunch

00:55:50 ◼   ► of really good iPads at good prices.

00:55:53 ◼   ► I think that the line is pretty good.

00:55:55 ◼   ► If there was an iPad line that could withstand a year

00:55:57 ◼   ► without a fresh iPad, it's this one.

00:56:00 ◼   ► It survived it.

00:56:01 ◼   ► It's okay.

00:56:02 ◼   ► You could still buy an iPad and they sold whatever,

00:56:07 ◼   ► seven billion of them,

00:56:08 ◼   ► a dollar's worth of them last quarter.

00:56:10 ◼   ► So I mean, those people didn't get shafted.

00:56:14 ◼   ► I think that was okay.

00:56:15 ◼   ► The reason I give it three instead of two, honestly,

00:56:18 ◼   ► is one, they made appreciable stage manager improvements

00:56:22 ◼   ► in iPad OS, which is something they,

00:56:24 ◼   ► making improvements after you launch a feature

00:56:27 ◼   ► is not something that Apple always does.

00:56:29 ◼   ► Sometimes they just let it lay there being bad for years,

00:56:32 ◼   ► and they didn't do that.

00:56:33 ◼   ► And two, I gotta give them credit for finally shipping

00:56:38 ◼   ► two Pro apps on the iPad, Logic and Final Cut Pro.

00:56:41 ◼   ► And while that doesn't necessarily balance out

00:56:44 ◼   ► some of the hardware sluggishness,

00:56:46 ◼   ► I do wanna give them credit for that

00:56:48 ◼   ► because I've been complaining about that for years

00:56:50 ◼   ► and years and years, and they shipped them,

00:56:52 ◼   ► and they did a creditable job at shipping them.

00:56:54 ◼   ► So for that, I'll take a three, considered two,

00:56:58 ◼   ► but I think I'll go with three.

00:57:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think you're being way more fair than I am.

00:57:03 ◼   ► Like, I am frustrated.

00:57:06 ◼   ► Because for me, I agree with you on stage manager,

00:57:09 ◼   ► but stage manager shouldn't have shipped originally.

00:57:13 ◼   ► It was bad, right?

00:57:15 ◼   ► And so fixing it is great,

00:57:16 ◼   ► but you put it to the bare minimum.

00:57:18 ◼   ► Like, it's not like that they added

00:57:21 ◼   ► the good things we wanted.

00:57:22 ◼   ► They just made it work.

00:57:23 ◼   ► - They made it usable, yeah.

00:57:25 ◼   ► No, this is the classic argument is,

00:57:27 ◼   ► do you give them credit for fixing the thing that they broke?

00:57:29 ◼   ► Do you give them credit for finally shipping apps

00:57:31 ◼   ► they should have shipped four years before?

00:57:34 ◼   ► I'm gonna give them a little credit for it.

00:57:35 ◼   ► - I should give credit for the Pro apps.

00:57:38 ◼   ► And saying what you're saying,

00:57:41 ◼   ► if I could, I would actually adjust to a two,

00:57:43 ◼   ► because I forgot about the Pro apps.

00:57:45 ◼   ► And that's my blind spot, because I don't use them,

00:57:48 ◼   ► and they just don't work for me,

00:57:49 ◼   ► so I forget that they exist.

00:57:51 ◼   ► But it is an important thing that they did.

00:57:54 ◼   ► I think I was too harsh.

00:57:55 ◼   ► I was too harsh on the hardware thing,

00:57:57 ◼   ► but it is something that's frustrated me,

00:57:59 ◼   ► because I do think that the iPad hardware line

00:58:03 ◼   ► has gotten quite confusing and complicated.

00:58:08 ◼   ► And at the moment, there isn't much of a justification

00:58:12 ◼   ► for why you should buy, say, the Pro still.

00:58:15 ◼   ► And so I've gotten a bit frustrated about that over time.

00:58:18 ◼   ► And in a year when they haven't done anything,

00:58:21 ◼   ► it kind of accentuated it for me,

00:58:23 ◼   ► but I feel like you were being more balanced,

00:58:26 ◼   ► and I was a bit more upset about it.

00:58:29 ◼   ► The Apple Watch is a 3.4, down from a 4.2.

00:58:34 ◼   ► I gave it a four,

00:58:35 ◼   ► because I got an Apple Watch Ultra this year,

00:58:38 ◼   ► and I think that's why it was a four last year,

00:58:40 ◼   ► because lots of people got an Apple Watch Ultra.

00:58:43 ◼   ► And I absolutely love...

00:58:45 ◼   ► The Apple Watch Ultra has changed my relationship

00:58:48 ◼   ► to the Apple Watch,

00:58:49 ◼   ► in a sense that I now enjoy my Apple Watch,

00:58:52 ◼   ► where I feel like I was starting to begrudgingly

00:58:55 ◼   ► wear my Apple Watch,

00:58:56 ◼   ► because of the frustrations I found in it,

00:58:58 ◼   ► and also the fact that it looked the same way

00:59:01 ◼   ► for a long time, and that bugged me.

00:59:03 ◼   ► And I really like the Ultra.

00:59:04 ◼   ► I'm a big fan of it,

00:59:05 ◼   ► and so I'm happy that it exists now.

00:59:09 ◼   ► - I think this is one of those categories

00:59:12 ◼   ► where I personally don't agree with the panel

00:59:16 ◼   ► focusing so much on what happened this year.

00:59:19 ◼   ► I also would give the Apple Watch a four.

00:59:22 ◼   ► I think the Apple Watch is in a good place.

00:59:24 ◼   ► I don't really care that the Ultra 2...

00:59:25 ◼   ► I mean, it was actually like a new chip.

00:59:27 ◼   ► They hadn't done that in a while.

00:59:29 ◼   ► I don't care that the pace of innovation is slow here,

00:59:31 ◼   ► because the Apple Watch has come a long way,

00:59:33 ◼   ► and they could always do more,

00:59:34 ◼   ► but I think the Apple Watch is in a fine place.

00:59:37 ◼   ► I think that updating the Ultra to the Ultra 2 is good.

00:59:39 ◼   ► They didn't just let it sit at Ultra.

00:59:41 ◼   ► They did improve the chip on that.

00:59:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I saw a lot of comments that are things like,

00:59:46 ◼   ► "Oh, that double-tap feature is not very interesting."

00:59:48 ◼   ► It's like, "Well, that's true."

00:59:50 ◼   ► That's true, but I'm not gonna say, "Well, one out of five,"

00:59:54 ◼   ► because the new feature that they added wasn't very good.

00:59:56 ◼   ► It's like, I think the Apple Watch is in a pretty good place.

00:59:58 ◼   ► I think the Ultra is a good addition to the line,

01:00:02 ◼   ► and I like that they updated it.

01:00:03 ◼   ► Is there more to be done in the Apple Watch?

01:00:06 ◼   ► Sure, but it's kind of the leader in smartwatches,

01:00:09 ◼   ► and the WatchOS...

01:00:11 ◼   ► I know WatchOS 10 was controversial.

01:00:14 ◼   ► I find myself not using most of the features of it.

01:00:17 ◼   ► I find that the changes they made,

01:00:19 ◼   ► I don't really use those features,

01:00:20 ◼   ► so it's kind of a wash for me.

01:00:22 ◼   ► I know people have opinions either way.

01:00:25 ◼   ► I could have given this a three.

01:00:26 ◼   ► I like the word just a lot.

01:00:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I could have given this a three.

01:00:29 ◼   ► I'll give it a four, but again,

01:00:32 ◼   ► I'm just really kind of reacting to the idea

01:00:34 ◼   ► that I don't think we need a brand new, fresh, amazing,

01:00:40 ◼   ► totally different watch hardware every year

01:00:43 ◼   ► for us to appreciate that the Apple Watch

01:00:45 ◼   ► is in a pretty decent place.

01:00:46 ◼   ► Wearables, is it a 3.5 down from a 4.4?

01:00:51 ◼   ► I think, as you've mentioned before.

01:00:53 ◼   ► There's just no, there wasn't stuff, right?

01:00:56 ◼   ► The AirPods Pro 2 came last year, in 2022, I think,

01:01:00 ◼   ► which you probably bought that up.

01:01:03 ◼   ► The year before last.

01:01:04 ◼   ► Okay.

01:01:04 ◼   ► It's those new features,

01:01:06 ◼   ► the conversational awareness and adaptive transparency,

01:01:09 ◼   ► which active transparency is a really great feature.

01:01:11 ◼   ► Yeah, I gave it a four for those features.

01:01:14 ◼   ► Conversational awareness and adaptive transparency,

01:01:16 ◼   ► they take time, I think, to get used to,

01:01:17 ◼   ► but if you commit to it for a bit,

01:01:20 ◼   ► there's real benefit there,

01:01:21 ◼   ► and I really like the features.

01:01:23 ◼   ► I think they're really good.

01:01:24 ◼   ► I think I would say four here, too,

01:01:26 ◼   ► and it's for the same reason,

01:01:27 ◼   ► which is not a lot happened in this entire category,

01:01:29 ◼   ► including the Apple Watch this year of note,

01:01:32 ◼   ► but it's a good category.

01:01:34 ◼   ► Apple's products are good.

01:01:35 ◼   ► I think Apple struggles with making new models

01:01:40 ◼   ► and selling new models of things like AirPods,

01:01:42 ◼   ► in part because they are already really good,

01:01:45 ◼   ► and so, I mean, I can't mark them down for that.

01:01:48 ◼   ► I'm looking at this now.

01:01:52 ◼   ► So we got 2022, the end of 2022 was the second generation,

01:01:57 ◼   ► but then, of course, we got the USB-C version,

01:02:00 ◼   ► but I'm thinking, I'm sort of thinking about that.

01:02:02 ◼   ► Yes, just the minor USB-C

01:02:05 ◼   ► with other somehow Apple Vision Pro features in it.

01:02:08 ◼   ► That actually annoyed me.

01:02:09 ◼   ► That annoyed me that I had to do that,

01:02:11 ◼   ► but I did buy the second pair,

01:02:15 ◼   ► but I was frustrated about that.

01:02:18 ◼   ► Apple TV is a 3, down from a 3.6.

01:02:21 ◼   ► I gave it a 2.

01:02:23 ◼   ► For me, the issue is I just,

01:02:26 ◼   ► the hardware of the Apple TV, I feel like,

01:02:29 ◼   ► is leaving so many things on the table

01:02:33 ◼   ► and they're just doing anything with it.

01:02:34 ◼   ► I also think, similarly for tvOS,

01:02:37 ◼   ► there are improvements to tvOS,

01:02:39 ◼   ► but I feel like with every improvement,

01:02:42 ◼   ► Apple also finds a way to just buy,

01:02:44 ◼   ► a lot of improvements to the TV app, I should say,

01:02:47 ◼   ► specifically, but every improvement to the TV app

01:02:50 ◼   ► comes with another thing where they're just trying

01:02:52 ◼   ► to make you look at Apple TV+ content, right?

01:02:55 ◼   ► So like, oh, here are these tabs.

01:02:57 ◼   ► And by the way, now we're just going to put you

01:02:59 ◼   ► on the TV+ tab a lot, rather than your home tabs.

01:03:03 ◼   ► Okay, but there are some features that are called

01:03:06 ◼   ► like continuity camera and stuff like that,

01:03:07 ◼   ► and it's hopefully building for something

01:03:10 ◼   ► like we were talking about mentioned earlier in the draft,

01:03:12 ◼   ► like a home part of a screen or something like that,

01:03:14 ◼   ► but I feel like Apple TV just kind of sits there

01:03:20 ◼   ► not doing much and over time,

01:03:22 ◼   ► it's just getting older and older and crickier

01:03:24 ◼   ► as time goes on.

01:03:25 ◼   ► - So my primary entertainment portal is the Apple TV.

01:03:31 ◼   ► - Same. - That's what I use.

01:03:32 ◼   ► I don't have a DVR, I don't have anything like that anymore.

01:03:34 ◼   ► It's all apps on Apple TV and tvOS.

01:03:37 ◼   ► And so if I'm following my arguments from earlier,

01:03:41 ◼   ► and I think having tried over the years,

01:03:44 ◼   ► including every so often I buy an Amazon thing

01:03:48 ◼   ► or a Roku thing, and I think Apple's is the best.

01:03:52 ◼   ► I really do.

01:03:54 ◼   ► I think it's the best.

01:03:55 ◼   ► I think that having the good hardware that's expensive,

01:03:57 ◼   ► that we complain about its price,

01:03:58 ◼   ► but it also means that it's more responsive and functional

01:04:01 ◼   ► in a lot of ways than the other hardware is.

01:04:03 ◼   ► So under that, I should give it a higher score,

01:04:07 ◼   ► but I'm also going to give it a two because I agree,

01:04:09 ◼   ► I don't like the direction that Apple TV and tvOS is going in.

01:04:12 ◼   ► I think they desperately need to reconceive the difference

01:04:16 ◼   ► or eliminate the difference between the home screen

01:04:19 ◼   ► and the TV app.

01:04:20 ◼   ► I hate that they have taken a user hostile approach

01:04:24 ◼   ► to content where they really have decided

01:04:27 ◼   ► they want to get in your way with Apple TV content

01:04:30 ◼   ► instead of your own up next queue.

01:04:31 ◼   ► I hate that they share the blame, I think,

01:04:36 ◼   ► in not being able to get Netflix on side.

01:04:39 ◼   ► There's a bunch of stuff in the OS.

01:04:45 ◼   ► I'll even ding them for their new feature.

01:04:47 ◼   ► Support for video conferencing using continuity camera is great.

01:04:51 ◼   ► There needs to be an accessory

01:04:52 ◼   ► so I don't have to cart out my phone

01:04:54 ◼   ► and put it on my TV every time I want to talk to somebody

01:04:56 ◼   ► on Apple TV.

01:04:57 ◼   ► There needs to be a continuity camera from someone,

01:05:01 ◼   ► Apple or a partner, and there's nothing.

01:05:05 ◼   ► And I hate it.

01:05:06 ◼   ► And they eliminated the port on the back of the Apple TV,

01:05:09 ◼   ► which would be perfect to plug in a USB camera.

01:05:12 ◼   ► So you can't use that.

01:05:14 ◼   ► It's just very frustrating.

01:05:15 ◼   ► So even when they give, they kind of take away.

01:05:17 ◼   ► I just think it is simultaneously the best one of these

01:05:22 ◼   ► out there and also not great and going in the wrong direction.

01:05:26 ◼   ► There's promise, right?

01:05:27 ◼   ► That's the thing that's frustrating

01:05:29 ◼   ► because it's so good.

01:05:30 ◼   ► There is promise, but the promise a lot of the time

01:05:32 ◼   ► is unrealized in the Apple TV,

01:05:35 ◼   ► which is a shame.

01:05:36 ◼   ► And a lot of it comes down to very similar things

01:05:38 ◼   ► of the rules that Apple puts in place for developers.

01:05:43 ◼   ► And she said, they do share in the Netflix thing.

01:05:45 ◼   ► Just give Netflix what they want.

01:05:47 ◼   ► Netflix is television.

01:05:49 ◼   ► They should be, I want Netflix content in the TV app

01:05:54 ◼   ► because of Apple and Netflix not being able to work out,

01:05:58 ◼   ► I feel like I don't get enough value

01:06:01 ◼   ► from my Netflix subscription because I forget to look.

01:06:05 ◼   ► Agreed, same, absolutely the same.

01:06:07 ◼   ► Very frustrating.

01:06:09 ◼   ► And again, also just the insistence of pushing down

01:06:14 ◼   ► my content in order for them to promote their own content.

01:06:18 ◼   ► And I pay for Apple TV Plus and I'm aware that there's a tab,

01:06:23 ◼   ► but like the fact that they have these huge ads for things

01:06:27 ◼   ► and then below it is the actual content of what I'm watching

01:06:31 ◼   ► that I want to get to, it's so frustrating.

01:06:34 ◼   ► And I get what they're doing,

01:06:36 ◼   ► but their priorities are wrong.

01:06:39 ◼   ► Their priorities are messed up.

01:06:40 ◼   ► And I get the idea that, well, we need to expose things

01:06:42 ◼   ► to people who don't know what to watch.

01:06:43 ◼   ► Okay, but I know what to watch.

01:06:45 ◼   ► I know what I wanna watch.

01:06:46 ◼   ► And there's no way for me to say, show me what I wanna watch

01:06:50 ◼   ► because that's what I care about.

01:06:53 ◼   ► I mean, it's very frustrating.

01:06:55 ◼   ► So they need to, they are, I rely on it all the time.

01:06:59 ◼   ► That's why I know all the flaws about it.

01:07:01 ◼   ► I'm gonna mark them down

01:07:03 ◼   ► because I'm disappointed that they aren't doing a better job

01:07:06 ◼   ► with the thing that I use every day.

01:07:07 ◼   ► - So I think two sides of the same coin these days.

01:07:11 ◼   ► Services, there's a 3.3 down from a 3.8.

01:07:15 ◼   ► I gave it a three.

01:07:17 ◼   ► Now this is interesting 'cause basically my thing

01:07:22 ◼   ► about services is Apple TV Plus,

01:07:24 ◼   ► the content is the best for me around there.

01:07:27 ◼   ► Like original programming,

01:07:29 ◼   ► I think Apple has the best original programming right now.

01:07:32 ◼   ► Like Slow Horses, For All Mankind, Shrinking,

01:07:36 ◼   ► three of my favorite shows last year.

01:07:38 ◼   ► Absolutely fantastic.

01:07:40 ◼   ► - Last season of Ted Lasso.

01:07:42 ◼   ► We're just finishing Criminal Records.

01:07:44 ◼   ► Silo was really good.

01:07:45 ◼   ► Like Foundation was really good.

01:07:47 ◼   ► Like there's so much there.

01:07:49 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely.

01:07:50 ◼   ► - But for me, outside of TV Plus,

01:07:53 ◼   ► I just find it harder and harder to think

01:07:56 ◼   ► and judge the services.

01:07:58 ◼   ► Like there's so many and I don't really feel

01:08:02 ◼   ► like I'm necessarily getting,

01:08:04 ◼   ► I don't feel like I'm getting good value, you know,

01:08:07 ◼   ► from my Apple One bundle, but I pay it and I use it.

01:08:11 ◼   ► But I don't really get the sense of like,

01:08:14 ◼   ► this is worth it for me.

01:08:16 ◼   ► - No, I don't use News Plus.

01:08:18 ◼   ► I find the News app still very frustrating

01:08:21 ◼   ► and full of sources that are terrible.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And many people commented in the report card

01:08:26 ◼   ► about how you can block a source,

01:08:27 ◼   ► but it's still there.

01:08:28 ◼   ► It just shows that it's there but blocked.

01:08:31 ◼   ► It's like, that's not what the, hmm.

01:08:33 ◼   ► And like News and News should work better

01:08:38 ◼   ► and then News Plus should work even better.

01:08:39 ◼   ► It should, it goes back to what I was saying

01:08:41 ◼   ► about the TV app.

01:08:42 ◼   ► It feels like I'm being told what to see.

01:08:44 ◼   ► And the quality of the content is poor

01:08:48 ◼   ► and there's lots of crappy ads.

01:08:50 ◼   ► I think they conceived the product wrong.

01:08:52 ◼   ► I think they conceived the product in a way

01:08:55 ◼   ► that required them to let publishers insert

01:08:57 ◼   ► their garbage ads in it.

01:08:59 ◼   ► And they've got a lot of really bad blogs

01:09:01 ◼   ► that just rewrite other, right?

01:09:03 ◼   ► It's all the problems of the web with content.

01:09:05 ◼   ► And instead of it being like a place

01:09:07 ◼   ► where the good content lives,

01:09:08 ◼   ► it's just the crappy content aggregated by Apple.

01:09:11 ◼   ► So News Plus isn't that great.

01:09:13 ◼   ► Fitness Plus is good.

01:09:14 ◼   ► I don't use it as much.

01:09:15 ◼   ► Lauren uses it a lot.

01:09:16 ◼   ► So, you know, and I think they do a good job with fitness.

01:09:19 ◼   ► The, I wanted to make an iCloud complaint.

01:09:23 ◼   ► I actually have started to use iCloud more.

01:09:26 ◼   ► I started syncing desktop and documents

01:09:27 ◼   ► because I've got more computers

01:09:29 ◼   ► that I'm using in different contexts now.

01:09:31 ◼   ► But like even there,

01:09:33 ◼   ► what I discovered is there were a bunch of utilities

01:09:36 ◼   ► that I have that are like right click on a file.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Like I do that a lot with services,

01:09:41 ◼   ► right click on a file.

01:09:42 ◼   ► And it turns out that a lot of Apple's Mac APIs

01:09:49 ◼   ► differentiate between whether something is in the cloud

01:09:53 ◼   ► or on your local system.

01:09:54 ◼   ► So when I went from my desktop is on my local system

01:09:59 ◼   ► to my desktop isn't a synced iCloud desktop,

01:10:02 ◼   ► a bunch of stuff just stopped working.

01:10:05 ◼   ► And that's on Apple because it's Apple

01:10:08 ◼   ► who's providing the compatibility for iCloud.

01:10:11 ◼   ► So even when I try to embrace iCloud,

01:10:14 ◼   ► I get frustrated by it.

01:10:15 ◼   ► So I don't know, I agree with you.

01:10:17 ◼   ► I don't really know how to judge this.

01:10:19 ◼   ► TV Plus is a standout, so three,

01:10:25 ◼   ► but there are other places where I'm just really disappointed.

01:10:29 ◼   ► And they raised the price of the bundles,

01:10:31 ◼   ► which is a point.

01:10:31 ◼   ► Sometimes I think I need to actually go back and decide

01:10:35 ◼   ► is the Apple One bundle actually still making sense for me

01:10:39 ◼   ► or would I be better off dumping a bunch of the ancillary parts

01:10:42 ◼   ► and could I save money by dumping them?

01:10:46 ◼   ► - Next up is HomeKit and Home Automation,

01:10:50 ◼   ► which is a 2.8 up from 2.7.

01:10:54 ◼   ► Did you give a score for services by the way?

01:10:57 ◼   ► - I think I said three,

01:10:59 ◼   ► just because I don't know what to give it otherwise.

01:11:01 ◼   ► - And that's how I feel about HomeKit and Home Automation.

01:11:03 ◼   ► I just gave it a three.

01:11:04 ◼   ► It's just like, I don't have anything to say on this.

01:11:07 ◼   ► - Oh, I do.

01:11:08 ◼   ► - Okay, go for it.

01:11:09 ◼   ► - One, I'm going to give it the lowest rating.

01:11:15 ◼   ► - Wow.

01:11:15 ◼   ► - The matter transition has been bad.

01:11:17 ◼   ► A bunch of my items still show up as like,

01:11:22 ◼   ► they're ones that are taken off the network

01:11:23 ◼   ► that you can't get rid of.

01:11:25 ◼   ► They're ones that suddenly just are like inactive

01:11:27 ◼   ► or can't connect and then they come back.

01:11:29 ◼   ► There's a lot of instability.

01:11:31 ◼   ► There are positives.

01:11:32 ◼   ► I've been using HomeKit Secure Video

01:11:35 ◼   ► for a couple of cameras.

01:11:36 ◼   ► That's actually part of the Apple One iCloud Plus

01:11:40 ◼   ► kind of bundle that I get some camera connections

01:11:44 ◼   ► and that's been nice.

01:11:46 ◼   ► But like, I am frustrated by HomeKit and Home Automation

01:11:51 ◼   ► because things don't seem, the Home app is bad.

01:11:55 ◼   ► The Home app needs a complete rethink.

01:11:57 ◼   ► There are all these extra Home apps that are in the App Store

01:12:00 ◼   ► that do stuff that the Home app doesn't do with HomeKit,

01:12:03 ◼   ► which is bananas.

01:12:05 ◼   ► The automation isn't as good as it should be.

01:12:07 ◼   ► I just, I feel like this is an area where Apple said,

01:12:11 ◼   ► oh no, we're going to be, we're going to embrace the Home

01:12:13 ◼   ► and then there's just nothing happening there.

01:12:16 ◼   ► Very frustrated by it.

01:12:18 ◼   ► I think that they're doing,

01:12:19 ◼   ► this is one of those areas where it feels almost abandoned

01:12:22 ◼   ► and I'm tired of being patient and saying,

01:12:24 ◼   ► well, they're working on it.

01:12:25 ◼   ► Matter's spinning up.

01:12:26 ◼   ► It's like, no, no, they dropped the ball.

01:12:29 ◼   ► - I actually agree with you.

01:12:31 ◼   ► I have retroactively changed mine to a one two.

01:12:35 ◼   ► - Okay, thank you.

01:12:35 ◼   ► Thank you, come with me, join me.

01:12:38 ◼   ► And we talk more generally about their home strategy,

01:12:40 ◼   ► which is not quite the same, but it's close enough.

01:12:43 ◼   ► What's their home strategy?

01:12:44 ◼   ► They, you know, revised the Home pods

01:12:47 ◼   ► and they still have that Apple TV,

01:12:49 ◼   ► which we complained about a little bit,

01:12:51 ◼   ► but like there's so much opportunity in the Home category

01:12:56 ◼   ► and they've done almost nothing and it's very frustrating.

01:12:59 ◼   ► - Hardware reliability is a 4.6 up from a 4.5.

01:13:06 ◼   ► I gave it a five.

01:13:07 ◼   ► I'm very happy with the quality of the hardware

01:13:10 ◼   ► from Apple in this past year.

01:13:11 ◼   ► I have no issues.

01:13:13 ◼   ► - Agreed, five.

01:13:14 ◼   ► - And I feel like it's been a while

01:13:16 ◼   ► since we've had like a gate,

01:13:18 ◼   ► like get those keyboards out of there

01:13:21 ◼   ► and oh, there's always a gate.

01:13:23 ◼   ► There's always a, oh, when I get a new iPhone,

01:13:25 ◼   ► my iPhone runs hot a little bit.

01:13:26 ◼   ► Okay, fine, yeah, sure.

01:13:28 ◼   ► - I mean, one that I think we can take seriously,

01:13:31 ◼   ► to be honest, like, you know, that was a thing.

01:13:35 ◼   ► Yes, people found that their phones were hot,

01:13:37 ◼   ► but phones could always get hot and they fixed it.

01:13:40 ◼   ► And it like wasn't like an issue issue, I think.

01:13:42 ◼   ► - No.

01:13:43 ◼   ► - Software quality is a 3.6 up from a 3.4.

01:13:49 ◼   ► I gave it a four.

01:13:50 ◼   ► Again, like I feel like we're not having these issues.

01:13:54 ◼   ► There are things I don't like about the software,

01:13:57 ◼   ► but I don't feel like the software is broken.

01:13:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think I'm going to say three,

01:14:01 ◼   ► but I feel similar to you.

01:14:04 ◼   ► The idea that what I like about Apple's software right now

01:14:08 ◼   ► is that I don't feel like there's some horrible pain

01:14:12 ◼   ► that I'm going through somewhere.

01:14:14 ◼   ► I don't feel like that.

01:14:16 ◼   ► I do feel like Apple's software in general,

01:14:20 ◼   ► including their apps and their operating systems,

01:14:24 ◼   ► could really stand more attention on quality,

01:14:30 ◼   ► attention on fixing bugs, attention on polish,

01:14:34 ◼   ► attention to existing software and features

01:14:37 ◼   ► that have been left by the side of the road

01:14:39 ◼   ► and could probably do with a little bit

01:14:40 ◼   ► of a dusting off and updating.

01:14:43 ◼   ► I feel like, and I understand why maybe

01:14:47 ◼   ► they're not doing that right now

01:14:48 ◼   ► 'cause they just launch Vision Pro and all of that.

01:14:50 ◼   ► But like, I feel like we talk about like doing

01:14:52 ◼   ► a snow leopard year, a mountain lion year,

01:14:55 ◼   ► like a lot about like maybe they could do that.

01:14:59 ◼   ► And I think maybe they could do that for a long time.

01:15:03 ◼   ► There are very, I mean, they're always gonna add

01:15:05 ◼   ► a thing here and there, but what I would really like

01:15:08 ◼   ► inside of Apple is Apple providing a little more incentive

01:15:12 ◼   ► to its developers to have a certain amount of time

01:15:15 ◼   ► that they can spend just making everything

01:15:17 ◼   ► that's already shipped better.

01:15:19 ◼   ► Because I think the danger when you're Apple

01:15:21 ◼   ► and you get in this shipping new features mode

01:15:24 ◼   ► is you spend all your money on the new features,

01:15:26 ◼   ► all your time on the new features,

01:15:28 ◼   ► and your systems are littered with old new features

01:15:32 ◼   ► that just sit there.

01:15:35 ◼   ► And several people mentioned in the survey

01:15:39 ◼   ► that screen time is a good example.

01:15:41 ◼   ► Screen time is a system feature that shipped broken

01:15:46 ◼   ► and is essentially never been fixed.

01:15:47 ◼   ► And it's broken, the numbers aren't reliable.

01:15:51 ◼   ► People have just given up on it.

01:15:53 ◼   ► - Sometimes I get 24 hours a day for seven days a week

01:15:57 ◼   ► 'cause something got stuck in Safari.

01:15:58 ◼   ► That's my favorite one.

01:15:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I mean, that's maybe an outlier of an example,

01:16:04 ◼   ► but it's a great example in the sense

01:16:05 ◼   ► that that was a new feature they talked up

01:16:07 ◼   ► and it didn't really work right.

01:16:09 ◼   ► And that's it, like that's the end of the story.

01:16:12 ◼   ► And that's why I feel like this isn't more

01:16:14 ◼   ► about like a snow leopard year.

01:16:15 ◼   ► I kinda want a snow leopard mentality in the software group

01:16:19 ◼   ► that I know they're gonna have to push forward new features

01:16:22 ◼   ► and I know they've got new operating systems,

01:16:24 ◼   ► but I would really like it if they got

01:16:28 ◼   ► a little less ambitious, honestly,

01:16:30 ◼   ► with some of their features year to year

01:16:32 ◼   ► and cultivated a more of a culture

01:16:35 ◼   ► of rewarding people for glowing up existing stuff,

01:16:42 ◼   ► because a lot of this stuff is dusty

01:16:45 ◼   ► and dingy and needs a glow up.

01:16:47 ◼   ► - Developer relations, a three up from 2.8.

01:16:53 ◼   ► I gave it a three and basically for me,

01:16:57 ◼   ► this is always one of my lowest scoring categories

01:17:01 ◼   ► for reasons that I don't think listeners of the show

01:17:03 ◼   ► would be surprised about.

01:17:04 ◼   ► And also this, I mean, this was just bear in mind,

01:17:08 ◼   ► this is the 2023 report card, right?

01:17:10 ◼   ► So it doesn't include what we've been talking about in 2024.

01:17:14 ◼   ► - Right.

01:17:15 ◼   ► - But I gave it a three this year,

01:17:16 ◼   ► which I actually think is one of the better schools

01:17:18 ◼   ► I could give because I thought that WWDC was really good.

01:17:23 ◼   ► I think that they did the best they could of what they had.

01:17:27 ◼   ► I saw a lot of developers very happy, enjoying themselves.

01:17:30 ◼   ► Like, and I think that they did, during that time,

01:17:34 ◼   ► I think they did a good job to get developers excited

01:17:36 ◼   ► for VisionOS.

01:17:37 ◼   ► And I think that the labs that they've done

01:17:41 ◼   ► were very good too.

01:17:42 ◼   ► Again, like very similar sentiment, it seems,

01:17:45 ◼   ► from a lot of the community.

01:17:46 ◼   ► But there were also a lot of developers

01:17:48 ◼   ► that were frustrated about a lot of things in VisionOS,

01:17:50 ◼   ► like the dev kits that never been materialized

01:17:53 ◼   ► for many and stuff like that.

01:17:54 ◼   ► But I do think that for where Apple is right now,

01:17:59 ◼   ► in my opinion, to score a three out of five

01:18:01 ◼   ► for developer relations would suggest that 2023

01:18:04 ◼   ► was a pretty good year for them.

01:18:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm gonna say three as well.

01:18:08 ◼   ► I'm tempted to say one because of everything.

01:18:11 ◼   ► But the fact is, I think, and I know this is looking

01:18:13 ◼   ► into 2024, which we're not technically allowed to do,

01:18:16 ◼   ► but you can see with the Vision Pro apps

01:18:19 ◼   ► that like, eh, there's still enthusiasm

01:18:22 ◼   ► for new Apple platforms out there.

01:18:24 ◼   ► Maybe not from bigger players as quickly as the indies,

01:18:27 ◼   ► but there's enthusiasm and there are a lot of,

01:18:29 ◼   ► I bought a lot of apps on Vision Pro in the last two weeks.

01:18:33 ◼   ► The other thing I would say is it's all about

01:18:37 ◼   ► who the developer is.

01:18:39 ◼   ► I think Apple's relationship with a lot of bigger developers

01:18:43 ◼   ► is fraught because they're taking 30%

01:18:46 ◼   ► because they have rules about how you have to format

01:18:50 ◼   ► your logins and how you use the app store.

01:18:53 ◼   ► And like, I get it.

01:18:55 ◼   ► But I always come back to the fact that most of the,

01:18:59 ◼   ► like we talk about the 30%, but the fact is most developers

01:19:02 ◼   ► don't pay 30% anymore, they pay 15%.

01:19:04 ◼   ► - For whether they're in the program

01:19:08 ◼   ► or they're on like a subscription or something.

01:19:10 ◼   ► - Or the second year of a subscription, either way, right?

01:19:13 ◼   ► So it's really the bigger developers

01:19:16 ◼   ► who have more fraught relationships.

01:19:18 ◼   ► And I know that there are complaints

01:19:19 ◼   ► among indie developers and they need

01:19:21 ◼   ► to do better documentation and there are things about the,

01:19:24 ◼   ► like there are always gonna be issues.

01:19:26 ◼   ► I feel like we're not in a situation where developers

01:19:29 ◼   ► are all out there with torches and pitchforks right now.

01:19:34 ◼   ► And when I, the reason this category exists

01:19:35 ◼   ► is 'cause when I started the Report Card, they were.

01:19:37 ◼   ► The torches were lit when I started the Report Card.

01:19:41 ◼   ► And I think that Apple has gotten better

01:19:44 ◼   ► and that the deal is better and that they have mitigated

01:19:47 ◼   ► a lot of it, even though there is all, I would say,

01:19:50 ◼   ► always going to be frustration with the way

01:19:52 ◼   ► Apple treats developers.

01:19:54 ◼   ► If Apple treated every developer like they treat

01:19:57 ◼   ► like Basecamp and Hay, right?

01:20:04 ◼   ► If they treated them the same as they do Epic,

01:20:06 ◼   ► well, sure, it would be a one.

01:20:10 ◼   ► But there are also a lot of positive stories

01:20:12 ◼   ► about people doing good work and using Swift and Swift UI.

01:20:15 ◼   ► And again, could those be better?

01:20:17 ◼   ► Sure, so I'm gonna throw it in the middle.

01:20:20 ◼   ► I think we so often dwell on the negative,

01:20:22 ◼   ► but I do see a lot of positive too.

01:20:23 ◼   ► And so I think I'd just have to come up

01:20:25 ◼   ► with a default three here.

01:20:27 ◼   ► - Okay, I feel like as well, developers,

01:20:29 ◼   ► indie developers in our circle, our community,

01:20:33 ◼   ► it seems like by and large these days,

01:20:37 ◼   ► they are disappointed at the things going on

01:20:40 ◼   ► at wider scale, but their individual experience

01:20:43 ◼   ► seems to be better.

01:20:44 ◼   ► - It seems to be okay, yeah.

01:20:46 ◼   ► - You know, like I think about, let me think,

01:20:47 ◼   ► let's talk about our friend Casey Liss.

01:20:49 ◼   ► We love talking about Casey.

01:20:51 ◼   ► So Casey is frustrated about things like documentation

01:20:55 ◼   ► and maybe some of the stuff that happened with Vision.

01:20:58 ◼   ► But at the same time,

01:20:59 ◼   ► CoreSheet just got an Editor's Choice Award.

01:21:01 ◼   ► So he as an individual developer

01:21:05 ◼   ► is getting a nice experience, right?

01:21:08 ◼   ► Like that is then paying attention

01:21:10 ◼   ► to some of the quality apps that exist on the platform.

01:21:13 ◼   ► So, or like I think about Underscore.

01:21:16 ◼   ► Underscore, when we talk, he has glowingly positive things

01:21:20 ◼   ► to say about Apple and his experiences with them,

01:21:23 ◼   ► because he kind of does what they want, I think.

01:21:27 ◼   ► And in doing that, he has a better experience

01:21:30 ◼   ► than people who maybe want something different.

01:21:33 ◼   ► So I think that there are individual,

01:21:39 ◼   ► like macro or micro experiences that people have.

01:21:43 ◼   ► And I think that the micro experiences

01:21:45 ◼   ► are actually getting better over time,

01:21:46 ◼   ► but you can't avoid the macro,

01:21:49 ◼   ► which actually brings the song quite nicely

01:21:52 ◼   ► to environmental, social, and societal impact.

01:21:55 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:21:56 ◼   ► - This scored a 3.8 this year, up from a 3.4.

01:22:00 ◼   ► I think the reason it went up is the reason I gave it a four,

01:22:03 ◼   ► which was the carbon neutral stuff.

01:22:05 ◼   ► I think this is a huge deal.

01:22:07 ◼   ► - Right.

01:22:07 ◼   ► Hey, Mother Nature, several people pointed out

01:22:09 ◼   ► that when Mother Nature is in your promo video,

01:22:12 ◼   ► you're doing pretty good.

01:22:13 ◼   ► - You're doing pretty good.

01:22:14 ◼   ► - And so like for me, the carbon neutral stuff

01:22:17 ◼   ► was a big jump and the commitments they're making

01:22:20 ◼   ► and actually shipping products today

01:22:23 ◼   ► that are carbon neutral for their lifetime is very bold.

01:22:27 ◼   ► And I think is helping them set a new path

01:22:30 ◼   ► for what the kind of the torch should be.

01:22:32 ◼   ► But I can't get, to me today, it is too complicated

01:22:38 ◼   ► to give a full score to Apple,

01:22:42 ◼   ► because a company of this size,

01:22:44 ◼   ► I don't know if I can call them a good for the world anymore.

01:22:48 ◼   ► Like it is just too big and they're doing too many things

01:22:51 ◼   ► and they're working on political stages.

01:22:53 ◼   ► You know, like I just, there's too much going on

01:22:57 ◼   ► that I don't know about that I feel like I can say like,

01:23:00 ◼   ► oh yeah, top marks, you know?

01:23:02 ◼   ► - Whatever issue you care about will also influence.

01:23:05 ◼   ► The one you care about the most will influence your feeling.

01:23:07 ◼   ► Look, so when I started this, I forget what,

01:23:11 ◼   ► there was some, it's changed every year.

01:23:14 ◼   ► There's some issue involving Apple.

01:23:16 ◼   ► And I think in the end, it is the greatest Rorschach test.

01:23:20 ◼   ► It really is, everybody's gonna score differently.

01:23:22 ◼   ► The reason it's so vague on one level

01:23:24 ◼   ► is I just kinda wanna get, like Apple always says

01:23:27 ◼   ► they wanna be a force for positivity in the world, right?

01:23:31 ◼   ► They wanna leave the world better than they found it.

01:23:33 ◼   ► That's what they say.

01:23:34 ◼   ► And this category is sort of like, how are they doing?

01:23:37 ◼   ► How do you think they're doing?

01:23:38 ◼   ► And we can't know.

01:23:40 ◼   ► And I think you're right, they're so huge,

01:23:41 ◼   ► it's actually very hard.

01:23:42 ◼   ► I'll say four, maybe three, but I'll say four,

01:23:51 ◼   ► it doesn't matter.

01:23:52 ◼   ► But what I wanted to say is several people pointed this out

01:23:55 ◼   ► and I think that it is the best way to look at this

01:23:57 ◼   ► on a broad scale, which is,

01:23:59 ◼   ► Apple did the carbon neutral products thing.

01:24:02 ◼   ► They had the mother nature video,

01:24:03 ◼   ► which I thought was funny.

01:24:05 ◼   ► And it's very easy to point at them and say,

01:24:07 ◼   ► yeah, but your carbon neutral's got a lot of offsets,

01:24:09 ◼   ► which are just tree planting, which is just a rife with fraud

01:24:13 ◼   ► and not really like planting a tree

01:24:14 ◼   ► where there was already gonna be a tree planted

01:24:17 ◼   ► doesn't actually offset anything.

01:24:18 ◼   ► And like, okay, I'm gonna guess that Apple's tree planting

01:24:22 ◼   ► is probably of a better quality than the lowest,

01:24:25 ◼   ► but still we can have that argument.

01:24:27 ◼   ► And the mother nature thing, you can be like,

01:24:29 ◼   ► come on, I don't like that and I don't like what it says

01:24:33 ◼   ► 'cause they're really a big corporation.

01:24:34 ◼   ► And I'll give you that too.

01:24:35 ◼   ► But what I will say is Apple's carbon neutral commitments

01:24:39 ◼   ► are valuable if for no other reason

01:24:43 ◼   ► than they put all of their other competitors

01:24:46 ◼   ► and other companies in the world to shame.

01:24:49 ◼   ► And it makes, by having a company,

01:24:53 ◼   ► the size and visibility of Apple

01:24:55 ◼   ► make those carbon neutral commitments,

01:24:56 ◼   ► it makes every other corporation have to answer the question

01:25:02 ◼   ► of what's their commitment.

01:25:04 ◼   ► And then you start to see commitments like,

01:25:06 ◼   ► I forget what the company is, is it Honda?

01:25:09 ◼   ► Somebody was like, we're gonna be carbon neutral

01:25:11 ◼   ► or no, it was an airline, American airline.

01:25:13 ◼   ► I was like, we're gonna be carbon neutral by 2050.

01:25:16 ◼   ► I'm like 2050?

01:25:18 ◼   ► And I don't believe them, but 2050.

01:25:21 ◼   ► So I think Apple deserves a lot of credit for trying

01:25:28 ◼   ► in public to live up to its commitment

01:25:32 ◼   ► and making the commitment.

01:25:35 ◼   ► There are lots of other issues here.

01:25:37 ◼   ► Apple's involvement in China depends

01:25:40 ◼   ► on how you feel about China.

01:25:41 ◼   ► - Union busting?

01:25:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

01:25:44 ◼   ► That came up in the comments,

01:25:45 ◼   ► their relationship with employees

01:25:47 ◼   ► who are trying to unionize.

01:25:48 ◼   ► We can talk about their work from home policy

01:25:51 ◼   ► being rescinded.

01:25:52 ◼   ► There are lots of things that we could talk about here.

01:25:56 ◼   ► It's complicated, like you said.

01:25:57 ◼   ► But I do think that they, at some high level,

01:26:01 ◼   ► are trying to do good in the world,

01:26:04 ◼   ► even though they are also, and we should never forget it,

01:26:08 ◼   ► a publicly held profit-making corporation.

01:26:10 ◼   ► That is what they are.

01:26:11 ◼   ► They are not a charity to make the world a better place.

01:26:13 ◼   ► So I think in the context of being

01:26:16 ◼   ► a publicly held profit-making giant corporation,

01:26:19 ◼   ► I think that they're a force for positivity

01:26:22 ◼   ► among their ilk, right?

01:26:26 ◼   ► Among their kind.

01:26:27 ◼   ► - You've gotta adjust your expectations accordingly, right?

01:26:30 ◼   ► You can't judge them as a non-profit

01:26:34 ◼   ► as you would a non-profit, 'cause they're not there.

01:26:36 ◼   ► - But it means you can go to Google or Facebook

01:26:38 ◼   ► or a car company or an airline and say,

01:26:41 ◼   ► well, this is what Apple's doing.

01:26:42 ◼   ► - Samsung. - What are you doing?

01:26:43 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah.

01:26:44 ◼   ► - You know, why aren't you doing what Apple's doing?

01:26:46 ◼   ► Why can't you do this? - And I'm sure

01:26:47 ◼   ► those companies hate that Apple is bringing this up,

01:26:49 ◼   ► 'cause then they have to talk about it, right?

01:26:52 ◼   ► And I think that is in Apple's credit,

01:26:54 ◼   ► even though we should never forget.

01:26:55 ◼   ► They're not a charity.

01:26:56 ◼   ► They're here to make a lot of money.

01:26:57 ◼   ► Never forget that.

01:26:59 ◼   ► But like, you know, for me,

01:27:01 ◼   ► they get this boost from the carbon neutral thing

01:27:03 ◼   ► this one time, like you've done it, great.

01:27:07 ◼   ► Now this is just what I expect from you.

01:27:09 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And so next year,

01:27:11 ◼   ► we go back, we reset the clock again.

01:27:14 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm. - So that's the scorecard.

01:27:17 ◼   ► There is so much good stuff in there.

01:27:18 ◼   ► There are, there's a good,

01:27:22 ◼   ► Quinn Nelson makes a very good jab at me.

01:27:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I caught a stray from Quinn,

01:27:26 ◼   ► so you can go check that one out over at sixcolors.com,

01:27:30 ◼   ► where you can get the report card.

01:27:31 ◼   ► It's always a good time to sit down,

01:27:33 ◼   ► cup a coffee and sort of just scroll through

01:27:35 ◼   ► and have a good time with what people have got to say.

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01:29:17 ◼   ► It is time for some Ask Upgrade questions.

01:29:21 ◼   ► First question comes from Darren who asks,

01:29:27 ◼   ► are the Ask Upgrade lasers produced live each episode

01:29:31 ◼   ► by Jason or is it a recording clip?

01:29:33 ◼   ► If it is live, he's very consistent.

01:29:36 ◼   ► Live, live every time, live every time.

01:29:42 ◼   ► Can you imagine if that was a clip?

01:29:43 ◼   ► No, no, they're live, they're just all handcrafted lasers.

01:29:48 ◼   ► That would be the logical thing to do, right?

01:29:50 ◼   ► But no, why do a clip?

01:29:52 ◼   ► Then we just get a laser sound effect

01:29:53 ◼   ► and it would sound professional

01:29:55 ◼   ► and that's not what we're here for.

01:29:56 ◼   ► No, we're here for the live lasers from Jason.

01:29:59 ◼   ► Chris says, you called the Apple Vision Pro

01:30:04 ◼   ► an iPad on my face.

01:30:05 ◼   ► When thinking about how to make a cheaper product

01:30:08 ◼   ► in this category, what do you think about the possibility

01:30:11 ◼   ► of an Apple Vision TV, a product focused on entertainment

01:30:14 ◼   ► and not general computing?

01:30:16 ◼   ► Here's my take on this.